Hover Through the Fog and Filthy Air
by Chiiyo86
Summary: AU after "Lucifer Rising." 2013 - The demon war ended three years ago with Lucifer's death. As Sam and Dean decide to hunt again, a friend tells them about strange human-shaped shadows attacking people in the night...
1. Chapter 1

A/N: _This story was written for the spn_j2_big bang challenge on LiveJournal - so it is complete, and the other chapters will follow in the next few days. My gratitude goes to wave obscura and smilla02 for the great beta work, and to roque clasique for the beautiful art (if you're interested in seeing it, my journal is linked on my profile, and you will find easily this fic's master post in my fic list)._

Disclaimer: _I don't own anything Supernatural related.  
_

**Chapter 1**

Sam opened his eyes to darkness, his breath short, mind still reeling from the feelings and images that weighted to the bottom of his stomach. He swallowed, checked the alarm clock on the nightstand near his bed. It was 5:44.

"Damn it," he groaned. No way he was going to get anymore sleep. Fucking nightmare.

He pushed the covers back and got out of bed, heading towards the bathroom. He didn't turn on the light, and moved as silently as a shadow when walking barefoot on the hardwood floor. Force of habit, because there was little chance that he would wake Dean.

Splashing some water on his face helped clear his mind a little, but the more he was awake, the more difficult it was to grasp images from his dream. It was about Ruby, that much he knew though he didn't remember dreaming about her face – either of her faces. From the bits and pieces coming back to him but already fading away, he remembered the sour taste of blood on his lips, the rush of orgasm and power merging with each other, tainted with hatred, sorrow and self-disgust. He blinked blurrily at himself in the mirror, and there was a moment of suspended time before he promptly threw up in the sink.

He felt better after that, lighter, like he had gotten rid of the sticky memories at the same time – at least for the moment. But it was also then that he noticed his head was pounding, a slow throbbing behind his eyes and at the back of his skull – it was a familiar pain, one he sometimes thought he deserved. Not that this kind of thinking ever did any good, he chided himself. He took some ibuprofen and stood there for a while, leaning on the sink until he grew so cold that lying around in bed waiting for Dean to wake up started to sound like a good idea.

Back in the room, he lay down and drew the covers up to his chin, waiting for the painkillers to kick in. He turned to Dean's bed and stared at the lump, curled in on itself, that was his brother. The meds made Dean sleep so sound and so still that it stung to watch him, like a needle slowly piercing through Sam's heart. He couldn't get used to seeing his brother sleeping like that, like a body in its coffin, so he strained to listen until he heard the soft noise of Dean's breathing. The wind was blowing outside, making the bare tree branches rustle and the framework of the old house creak, a gentle night song that was strangely comforting.

"It's like we're living in a haunted house," Dean had said when they had moved into the Simon Benson House, and more than two years later Sam was still filled with awe at the thought that after all the seedy motels and abandoned houses they had occupied in their lives, they were now living in a place so full of history and architectural interest. When they had arrived here he'd rambled incessantly to Dean about how Simon Benson had built this house in 1900 on the corner of SW 11th and Clay, how it'd been moved to the Portland State University campus and renovated in 2000 and _did you know that its architecture is very original, different from the usual Queen Anne style?_ He'd been trying to distract Dean, and his brother had bravely put on a smile that didn't reach his eyes and never mocked him for being a geek.

But that was all over now, or if not over, then at least things were better. Dean was better, and Sam… Sam was starting to be cautiously hopeful about their future, for the first time in a very long time. Well, maybe not right now, because his head was still hurting; he closed his eyes, let out a sigh, and massaged his right temple with two fingers. He let himself be soothed by the sound of Dean breathing in, breathing out, and he probably started to drowse off because next thing he knew he was startled by light turning on and his brother's voice, "You awake, Sammy?"

Sam opened his eyes; Dean was sitting in his bed, hair ruffled and blinking groggily, struggling as usual to shake off the medication-induced sleep.

"Yeah," Sam mumbled. He brought a hand to his face, massaging his forehead.

"Headache?"

"Mmmh."

Dean winced sympathetically, and started to lazily push the covers back.

"How bad?"

"T's okay. A four, maybe?"

"Did you take anything?"

"Yeah, had a pill, like…" He looked at his alarm clock. "…fifty minutes ago. It took off the edge, but…"

"It still hurts."

"Yeah."

"Want me to use my magic fingers?" Dean offered with a half-smile, wriggling said fingers.

Sam chuckled, something warm blooming in his chest despite the pain in his head.

"You're an idiot, you know that?"

"Hey, they're your words, not mine. I remember distinctly you saying, 'Oh, Dean, you have magic fingers'."

Sam sat up, pushed the covers and threw his legs out of the bed.

"Come here, you moron."

Dean came to sit beside him and Sam turned a little, his back to his brother so he could place his hands, fingers spread, on Sam's temples, and Dean began to massage with a slow circular motion. His hands moved to the top of Sam's head, and he kept rubbing energetically until the pain subsided. Sam closed his eyes and let a soft moan of relief escape him.

"God," he breathed.

"Call me Dean."

Sam gave him the finger, eyes still closed. Dean chuckled, a sound so rare these days that Sam wanted to cry, wanted to freeze the moment and lock it up in a box like a precious gem.

"Better?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. Waited for a few seconds and said, "You can stop."

"Okay. Feel like getting dressed and getting out for breakfast? I'm starving."

Sam's eyes snapped open at his brother's words.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really." Sam's lips were curving up in a smile. "Don't say anything," Dean warned.

"I'm not…"

"Not a word, Sam."

Sam pressed his lips together, and remained silent. He was feeling a lot better, now. He put an hand through his hair – that was maybe a little too long, he noticed absently – and let it rest a few seconds while he was trying to gauge the remaining pain, and whether or not he was feeling like going out and being with people. Although that early in the morning, the campus probably wouldn't be crowded.

Dean was already half-dressed when he stopped buttoning up his shirt.

"Sam? You coming or what?"

"Yeah, yeah." He stood up and started rummaging in his side of their closet. "You're full of energy this morning," he said as casually as he could. "Not that that's a bad thing."

"Well, I don't know. I feel good," Dean said, looking somewhat surprised, poking in wonder at the foreign feeling.

"Good. That's good."

They went through their morning routine without exchanging any other words, comfortable with the silence between them. In spite of his nightmare and waking up with a headache, Sam felt good about the starting day, which may or may not have a lot to do with his brother being in a good mood.

When they were both ready Sam followed his brother out of their room, across the entrance hall. Before he could open the front door, Dean stepped on something, smiled and crouched down to pick up a small piece of cardboard on the floor, a postcard that had probably been slid under the door by the postman. Sam shot a glance above his brother's shoulder. The picture on the postcard showed a river, water gleaming under the sun, bordered by tall trees with golden leaves. On the right bottom corner was written "Minnesota."

Dean turned the card and read out loud the words written on the back in elegant handwriting, "Absent in body, but present in the mind."

No signature, but Sam and Dean didn't need any. There was only one person who would send them postcards quoting the Bible. One year ago, Castiel had told them goodbye, announcing his decision to travel all over the country on his bicycle. The angel had progressively lost all his powers after his brothers and sisters left Earth. It wasn't very long after Lucifer had been freed from his prison – when Dean had refused to be their good little soldier, Zachariah and the others had just deserted, abandoning the world in the Devil's hands. Castiel had stayed, though, had paid the price for his loyalty to the Winchesters and had been cut from Heaven. His last power to go had been his ability to _poof__ – _as Dean called it – in any place and at any time he wanted. Faced with his new mortal condition, he had decided to discover the country Sam and Dean knew so well by using one of the slowest human mean of transport. As long as the postcards kept coming, they knew he was okay.

Dean looked at the card for a few more seconds before sliding it inside his jacket.

"Gonna put it with the others when we come back."

Sam nodded and bumped lightly into his brother's shoulder to tell him to move on. It was so early that the sky was gray with the light of dawn, the leafless trees silhouetted against it like skeletal hands raised in supplication. Mist was lingering in thin white strips, and though the air was more cool than cold, Sam shivered a little, missing the warmth of his bed.

They walked across the campus without meeting anyone. When they first came here, more than one building had been destroyed or derelict, though the damage was far less significant in this part of the country than on the east coast where most of the major cities had been. There, many people were still living in camps, and their future was uncertain. In Portland the reconstruction had begun just a few months after Lucifer's death and all the demons being sent back to Hell had marked the end of the war.

Now the campus looked almost untouched – save for a few buildings – like nothing had happened. People knew better, though. Everyone's life had been changed irrevocably, starting with the fact that nobody could escape the knowledge that demons existed and had almost destroyed the world.

They arrived at their place of choice when it came to eating, and Sam saw the corner of his brother's mouth turn up, before Dean started to walk a little faster. The Cheerful Tortoise used to be one of Portland's oldest bars, a place for the students to gather. Abandoned during the war, it had been bought back by Elena Darwell, who had kept the original name and the laughing tortoise mascot, but had turned the bar into a place where everybody could eat homemade food for cheap.

Dean pushed the door and they were welcomed by the smell of bacon and baking. Inside the only customers were three young men, probably students, sitting in a corner around one of the small square tables and speaking in low voices. An old man was sitting at the bar and staring at the red bricks of the wall, a cup of coffee in front of him that he wasn't drinking.

"Hey, boys!" Elena greeted them.

Elena, a little woman around fifty years old, smiled brightly at them, her eyes sparkling with happiness, like seeing them come in was the highlight of her day. It was something Sam didn't think he would ever get used to. Elena made everyone feel special and welcome, basking them in her light that never seemed to dim. Her head was covered with a colorful headscarf, as she had been so badly burned during the war that her hair couldn't grow anymore, but she joked easily about it, never the hint of a shadow in the blue of her eyes.

"Hi, Elena," Sam said with a smile, and Dean simply nodded.

"Want some breakfast?"

"Hell yes, I'm so hungry!" Dean exclaimed.

Elena beamed at him.

"Oh Dean, that's wonderful!"

Dean scowled, looking annoyed.

"I don't get what's so _wonderful_ about it," he mumbled, but Elena ignored him and kept babbling happily, "I made some pie, I'm sure you'll want a slice of it with whatever you're having…"

"Eggs and bacon, two eggs, please," Dean said.

"You got it. Sam, honey, you as hungry as your brother?"

Sam thought about food, about eating it. He found that he wasn't nauseated, which was good, but not exactly hungry either.

"I'm not really hungry."

"You have a headache?"

"A little when I woke up, but it's better, now."

"Better not to drink coffee, then. Some orange juice and dry toast, maybe?"

"Um, yeah. Thank you, Elena."

"Have a seat, boys." She waved at the empty tables. "Food is coming."

They settled at their usual table.

"I miss coffee," Dean blurted out suddenly.

Caffeine didn't mix well with Dean's medication, so he hadn't been allowed to drink coffee in years, since the beginning of his treatment. He looked longingly in the direction of the old man at the bar, who was still not drinking his coffee and sitting alarmingly still.

"You sure you don't want to order a cup, just so I can inhale the smell?"

"I don't feel like coffee, Dean."

"Okay," Dean pouted before he yawned catlike, his mouth wide open and not even trying to hide it with his hand.

"Did you take your meds?" Sam asked.

Dean glared at him, but it was without heat. It was part of their well-oiled routine – Sam would ask, and Dean would play at reluctance, but they both knew that Dean was really careful with his medication. He was too scared of what could happen, too scared of himself and of what his mind contained not to be careful. But for some reason it seemed to make him feel better to pretend the contrary, so Sam played along.

"Not yet," Dean grumbled, and his hand disappeared in the inside of his jacket, coming back with three little bottles that he lined in front of him. Sam didn't need to read the labels, he knew them all too well – Effexor, Wellbutrin, Geodon; he knew their uses, their side effects, had read everything he could find about them. Only a year ago it would have been unthinkable for Dean to do that where people could see and ask what it was, but he had become a lot less self-conscious about his condition. Anyway, the other customers didn't pay any attention to them, and Elena already knew about Dean.

As Dean popped the pills into his mouth, a young girl dressed in a green apron approached the table with their plates. Sam had never seen her before, and he glanced at his brother to check on his reaction. Dean had quickly closed the bottles and pocketed them swiftly, but he was smiling at the girl. It took a moment for Sam to identify this smile, having to dig up memories of another time, but when he did his eyes widened a little in surprise – this was Dean's flirtatious smile, albeit rusty, a little hesitant and insecure.

"Hey there," Dean said. "We've never seen you here before, have we?"

The girl blushed, and put the plates on the table. She was probably somewhere between twenty and twenty-five, but she looked so young to Sam, like there was a whole generation between them.

"I've just got here. Mrs. Darwell gave me a job."

"It's Elena, Bettany," Elena corrected from behind the bar. "Everyone calls me Elena."

Bettany turned quickly, her mouth opened in a "o" like she was at fault.

"Oh, sorry, M… Elena."

"It's okay."

"So, Bettany," Dean said conversationally, "where are you from?"

"San Francisco. But my parents were killed, and I have an aunt in Portland, so as soon as I could gather enough money to come… I didn't want to be alone."

Dean simply nodded, but something dark crossed his face and Sam suddenly wished the girl would go away. Like she'd read his mind, Bettany nervously wiped her hands on her apron and said, "Well, I should go back to work…"

"Okay. Good luck with your new job." Dean's smile was back like it had never gone.

"Thanks."

Dean's gaze lingered on her lower back as she walked away, and Sam couldn't help but smile.

"She's pretty," he said, and took a sip of his orange juice.

Dean averted his eyes from the young waitress to look at his brother.

"Stop it."

"What?"

"Stop smiling because I flirted with the pretty waitress."

"I'm not smiling!" Sam protested.

"You look like a proud mom before her son's wedding. It's creepy, dude."

Sam bit carefully into a toast before he retorted.

"I'm just happy. I can't be happy?"

"You can be happy all you want, Sam. Just… don't smile when you see me looking at a girl. Keep your sick fantasies to yourself."

"Get your mind out of the gutter, man," Sam shot back on cue, though to be truthful Dean's mind had been out of the gutter for a long time. The symptoms he suffered, and the medication he had to take were fucking with his libido, so it felt good to see him flirt and ogle, because it was bits of his brother coming back, like gold nuggets hidden under tons of mud that Sam had spent years digging with his bare hands.

The door's bell rang, and Sam turned lazily to peek above his shoulder. He was generally pretty paranoid, checking on every noise, considering every person coming close as a potential threat to him or his brother, but the Cheerful Tortoise was one of the rare places where he felt safe. And to see Dean, who was facing the door, go from wary to relaxed was a guarantee that the new comer's identity wasn't a bad surprise.

"Hey, guys."

Sam smiled at the young man who was coming to their table, dragging a chair behind him. He dropped on it tiredly, rubbing eyes still full of sleep.

"Hi, Paul," Sam said.

"_Bonjour, ça va?_" Dean said, dragging out the unfamiliar syllables, ending with a proud purse of the lip.

Sam snorted, and Paul smirked, impish but not unkind.

"Don't try to speak French, Dean, you're going to strain something."

Sam laughed noiselessly, which earned him a glare from his brother. Paul's smile, however, faded quickly instead of joining Sam in his hilarity, which made Sam raise an eyebrow. Paul was a generally happy-go-lucky person, but today the spark was missing in his eyes, and they looked darker than usual.

"Something's wrong?" Sam asked.

"No. Yeah. I don't know, not really."

"Pick one, dude," Dean said a little impatiently.

Paul sighed and his fingers went through his hair. He let his hand rest on his head for a few seconds; it looked pale in contrast with the red of his hair.

"I got my mom on the phone yesterday."

"Finally? That's great!" Sam exclaimed, but Paul's lips pressed against each other. "Not great? Why? You've been trying to get a hold of your family since the war ended. How is it not good news? Unless… your family?"

"No, no they're okay. Mostly. I mean, one of my cousins disappeared but he was an asshole anyway, so… but my parents and my sisters are okay."

"So what's the matter?"

"Mom asked me when I'll be back in France."

"Well, you'll have to wait a little, obviously, until planes start to fly again to Europe but I say give it a year and…" Sam trailed off. "But that's not the problem, is it?"

"I didn't know what to tell her. I mean I've been living in the U.S. for what, more than five years, now? And I met people, you guys, my girlfriend, and Anna and Kelly; my students too, even if, yeah, people aren't falling over each other to learn French these days, but still."

"Don't you miss home?" Dean asked. Sam could see that he was straining to understand what Paul thought was the problem. He had a family waiting for him, all of them alive save for one asshole cousin. What was wrong with that picture?

"Of course, I do," Paul said softly. "But Evreux, my town… Mom told me it suffered a lot. Apparently everything from the cathedral to Boulevard Gambetta was completely destroyed… It means pretty much the whole town center, you see, and…"

"And it won't be exactly home anymore, right?" Sam completed for him.

"Yeah. Evreux isn't the greatest town of France or anything, but I learned how to drive in those streets, I hung around with my friends in them… There's this place, where the river makes a kind of… pond or something, it's bordered by willow trees and ducks and swans come swimming in it. We call it "_Le miroir d'eau_" – it means mirror of water – and now it's all gone. I just… I don't know if I want to see my town like that."

"You don't have to decide just yet," Sam said. "You can't go now anyway. What did you say to your mom?"

"What you just said. That I had to wait for planes to be available, and that I didn't know when it was going to be."

"Good. Maybe in a year you'll be tired of us, and you'll be dying to go back to your country."

Paul snorted a laugh.

"Yeah. Um, sorry about the melodrama. I know I'm lucky compared to… I mean, all the stuff you two have been through…"

Dean remained expressionless, and Sam conveyed with a pointed look how much he didn'twant Paul to mention what they had gone through. Paul raised his hands in surrender.

"Alright. I shut up."

"You do that. Don't you have class, or something?"

"In half an hour. I came to talk to you about something, actually."

"If this is about hunting again," Dean said, "then it's still no. It will be no again tomorrow, and no the day after tomorrow, and…"

"Okay, okay, I get it. But it would be just for this…"

"No, Paul," Sam and Dean chorused.

Paul pouted childishly, and blew off a lock of hair that was falling in his eyes.

"I don't understand, guys. I'm almost twenty-seven. Weren't you a lot younger when you started hunting?"

Sam glanced at Dean, but his brother looked unflappable. Between the two of them, Dean was the more insistently against Paul hunting, and Sam wasn't sure exactly why. Though Sam often thought of Paul as a kid, the young man was actually only a few years younger than himself. Sam thought about the day they'd met, eighteen months ago when they'd decided to rent the house's second and third floor. Paul's bubbly enthusiasm, the open way he'd shared his life story with them, telling them how he'd come as a French lector and had been unable to leave after Lucifer had been freed, had been disconcerting, jarring. Sam hadn't thought it was still possible to look so happy, so carefree in this godforsaken world. Paul had progressively grown on them, even on Dean, who hadn't done well with strangers since the end of the war. He had begun asking for them to teach him hunting a few months ago, arguing he'd learned at least how to shoot during the war and could handle the rest, but Dean had been unwavering on the subject.

"We were," Sam said when it was clear that Dean wasn't going to say anything. "We didn't have much a choice, and it sure as hell didn't make our life happier. You know how to protect yourself, that should be enough."

"I don't want to just be able to protect myself. I did it during the war, but now I want to fight back a little. And if you're that unhappy with hunting, why start again?"

"Because that's what we do," Dean said sharply. "Because that's what we've done all our lives. But you're not like us."

He said that bluntly, almost spat it, but Sam knew he actually meant it as a good thing, an innocence he wanted to keep safe. However, Paul didn't know Dean that well, and Sam saw him falter.

"Uh, okay. Don't get mad at me, dude. But what I wanted to tell you wasn't just about me hunting with you. It was about a hunt."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. Dean raised a dubious eyebrow.

"A hunt? What kind of hunt?"

"Well, you remember Amy?"

"Your girl? Unless you changed girlfriend and didn't tell us, yeah I remember her. Sammy?"

"Pretty blond, blue eyes, five foot tall? Yeah. What about her?"

"The last few times we talked on the phone I could hear that something was bothering her. Yesterday she told me that she thought something was happening in her town. Something supernatural."

"Do you have any details?" Sam inquired.

"I do. Over the last months, she heard several people talking about seeing strange shadows, mostly at night."

"What kind of shadows?"

"Corner of the eyes type of thing, human-shaped. Sometimes with red eyes. Nothing was really happening, it was just… shadows. And she didn't see them herself, so she didn't think much of it. Still, it happened often enough that people were starting to get nervous in town. You see, Government Camp is a little town in the mountains, and it was pretty isolated during the war. People came to take refuge from the Croats there. They're still very mistrustful and on edge, so Amy thought maybe what they were seeing was just a trick of the eye. Then, a few days ago, one of her friends was… attacked."

Sam saw in the green of Dean's eyes that his brother's interest was peaked, though his features remained impassive. He suppressed a smile.

"By a shadow?" Sam asked, turning his attention back to Paul.

"She was woke up with a weight on her chest and when she opened her eyes, there were red eyes looking back at her. It was dark, but she said it looked like the figure of someone straddling her. And it tried to strangle her."

"How did she survive?"

"Her dad opened the door of her room and turned on the light. He had heard her moan, but he didn't see anything. She had bruises on her neck, though, so it wasn't a dream."

"Creepy," Dean said. He looked at Sam. "It could be a ghost. What d'you think?"

"Could be, but I don't know. Ghosts aren't afraid of light, at least not of electrical light. And they generally don't appear as shadows…" Little wheels were already turning in Sam's mind, and he licked his lips pensively. "It could be several things, like… I remember a South American legend about a shadow creature called 'El Petizo' who attacks lone walkers, but Amy's friend was at home when it happened, and we're in North America, so it's probably something else."

"Though it wouldn't be the first monster to change its habits," Dean said. "Remember that Wendigo at Black Water Ridge?"

"So does it mean you're taking the case?" Paul said. "'Cause, you know, if you do, you're gonna need someone who knows the town a little. The people there, they're going to be wary of you, even if you say you're hunters. Especially if you're hunters, actually. For some reason they don't seem to like hunters too much."

Dean threw him a stern look.

"But we know Amy," he said. "She can show us around, and tell us what we need to know."

"Yeah but people have never seen you with her, and they're all very protective of each other. If I come with you, we could say you're friends of mine. It will look a lot less suspicious."

Sam felt amused by Paul's perseverance, but Dean's eyes narrowed.

"If we let you come with us, do you promise to do everything we tell you?"

Paul's eyes widened, like he couldn't believe his argument was working.

"Uh, yeah. Of course. I'm not stupid, I'm aware you know better when it comes to this stuff."

"We really do." Dean raised a finger. "And for the record, you're not hunting with us. You're coming to help us with the town folk."

Dean's eyes met Sam's, who understood that his brother was waiting for confirmation.

"So I guess we're all going to Government Camp, then," Sam concluded.

Paul was positively beaming.

"We are. That's so cool."

It suddenly occurred to Sam that for their first hunt since the end of the war, maybe would have been a good idea to pick something more straightforward. He glanced at Dean but his brother was looking at his plate. Sam ignored the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, and fervently hoped that they weren't making a bad decision.


	2. Chapter 2

_For author's note and disclaimer, see chapter 1._

**Chapter 2**

"Do you still think about it sometimes?"

She said that so casually, looking icily regal with her wavy brown hair and her steely grey eyes, sitting behind her wide desk like a wall between them. Dean envied her calm. He kind of hated her for it, sometimes.

"About what?" he asked, and she smiled, barely. It was like a dance, one that they'd been practicing for more than two and a half years, since the first time he entered her office, his mind so wrecked that neither the world nor himself seemed to make any sense. No gain without giving up something; no giving in without fighting all the way. It was how they rolled.

"You know what I'm talking about."

He did. It was just a question of who was going to say the word first. Of course, he should have known it would be her.

"About dying, Dean. Do you still want to die?"

He folded his arms and raised his chin, all teenage rebellion, like Sammy after he'd turned fifteen and standing up to Dad had become his reason to live.

"What do you want me to say, Doc? Huh? If I say I do, will you think that all your efforts were for nothing and put my file in the 'hopelessly damaged' pile?"

"Is that a yes?"

He didn't answer.

"When do you think about it, for instance? When you're alone and Sam is away?"

Caroline – not that he ever addressed her like that, of course – waited patiently for him to answer. She knew him so well; in some ways, she knew him better than Sammy, or at least she knew every fucked-up thing there was to know about him. But well, it was her job, he guessed. She was beautiful but in a remote, otherworldly way, and he'd never felt any desire for her. His libido was shot to hell anyway, but it was more that she somehow didn't really feel human to him. He was aware that she had to hide behind a professional mask but he didn't care, and he wanted to keep it that way. It made it all easier, baring the ugliest parts of his soul.

"It… happens, sometimes. When Sam is at work," he said with some difficulty, each word coming out of his mouth like a solid object. "But I never do anything about it," he added quickly.

"Obviously." She smiled, in a way that would have looked condescending on someone else. "And what do you do when it happens?"

"I wait. I look at my watch and I work out how much time before Sam comes back. I focus on the seconds, on the minutes, how they add to each other until…"

He stopped, feeling the embarrassment grow as he realized how OCD it sounded. _Dude, you're crazy. Get used to it already._

"And it's better when Sam is there? You never think about it when he's with you?"

He glared at her and kept his mouth resolutely shut, pressed his lips together in a pout. He couldn't answer that, _couldn't__._ Caroline knew how to pick her battles, though, and she astutely asked around the subject, "Do you talk about it with him? Have you ever discussed the day you tried to kill yourself?"

"You kidding?" Dean said, eyes rolling. What a ridiculous question.

"I think I remember telling you to talk about it with him." She sighed. "I know it's not your way…" Her lips pursed at Dean's snort. "… but I'm convinced it would do both some good."

"Don't you think my brother has already enough sh… crap to deal with? He's supporting us almost entirely with his job at the library, paying for my meds and therapy, and really, since after the war it's been hell for him, with his headaches and me going crazy…"

"Dean," she interrupted him. "How many time do I have to tell you that you're _not_ crazy? There's a difference between mental illness and psychiatric injury."

"I know, I know. I'm not crazy, I'm traumatized. Whatever. My point is, why would I make him relive one of the worst days of his life – and may I add that his life has had a lot of very bad days? I just… can't."

_Especially since he still hasn't forgiven me for it._ He didn't voice his thoughts – he was more open with Caroline than he'd ever been with anyone, but he really didn't feel like talking about this specific matter right now.

Caroline was silent for a moment, probably pondering whether to push the issue or not. She breathed in and entwined her fingers on the dark wood of her desk.

"Speaking of money, what about your project to start hunting again?"

"It's a done deal. We got our licenses – had to pass a stupid exam to get it, but now we have a card and everything." He almost asked if she'd like to see it, like a kid wanting to show his mom his drawings, but caught himself in time. "We even have a case."

She frowned at that, her pretty nose wrinkling.

"A case already? What kind of case?"

"A shadow thing in Government Camp. Paul's girl – remember Paul, the French guy who rents the second floor of our house? Well, she said a shadow attacked a friend of her's."

"Is that possible? I mean… a shadow?"

He observed with fascination that she looked uneasy, and at first he couldn't figure why until it dawned on him suddenly – as a psychologist, she had to have a clear-cut vision of what was real and what wasn't. Lucifer and his demons roaming around the earth, not to mention the creepy zombie virus, all that had to destroy a number of Caroline's certainties about the world and about her job. He had talked about hunting many times over the past couple of years, but either she had been better at hiding her emotions, or he had been too engrossed in his own problems to notice them.

"Everything is possible, unfortunately," he said mildly to her, feeling something like compassion bloom inside of him.

"I see." She had found her cool again, her face as pale and smooth as a porcelain doll. "So you're going to go to Government Camp and investigate, I imagine."

"Do I sense some disapproval?"

"You know my opinion on the matter. In your condition, people generally try to avoid potentially triggering situations. Hunting seems to me full of these kinds of situations. You could even uncover some triggers you weren't aware of."

"Sam has my back," he said, irritated for some reason.

"I know he does," she said, lowering her voice in that non-threatening, calming tone she used when she was humoring him. "But I advise you to think about it some more."

"I've thought about it! I have done nothing but think about it while I do nothing all day!"

"You could find a day job."

"You don't understand. _This is my job._ It's always been my job. I'm almost thirty-five, I feel twice as old, and it's always been my life! _What else do you want me to do?_"

He realized he was almost shouting, leaning forward aggressively, and he forced his breathing to slow the fuck down. She didn't even bat an eyelid, but then she had seen a lot worse from him. He clenched his fists, frustrated with himself. He wanted to be back to normal already – had wanted it for years, now, but maybe this was his new normal and he just had to suck it up. She let a few more seconds pass, time for him to calm down, before asking gently "Have you had any flashbacks recently?"

"Not in the last three months or so. Not any full-on flashbacks at least. Some milder ones, but not in the last few weeks." He allowed himself a genuine smile. "I've been feeling pretty good. I need to do this, Doc."

He was asking her permission, he realized. Like she was his mom, or his boss – but the truth was, she was a lot more than that. She was his key to sanity.

"I'm here to help you, Dean. But ultimately, only you can make the decisions concerning your own life. To tell you the truth, I think you can do it. I don't think you're a threat to yourself anymore, or a threat to others…" His eyes shifted and she insisted. "You're controlling yourself very well. I'm just worried that you're going to expose yourself to more trials than needed."

"Well, my entire life is a trial, so." He shrugged.

She looked at him, and there was something akin to sadness in her eyes.

"It shouldn't be," she said.

About twenty-five minutes, Dean decided. Sam should be back in twenty-five minutes. Dean was sitting on the steps in front of their house, waiting, but pointedly not looking at his watch. He didn't really feel bad or anything, no, he was nowhere near the level of suffocating anguish he'd sometimes reached. He just was so… lonely, in there. Sam was at his job at the PSU library; Paul was out, doing whatever French people did with their free time; Kelly and Anna, who were renting the third floor, were probably both in class – or was it today that they were celebrating their fifth anniversary? The house was huge and echoing, a big empty space that could only be filled with thoughts. Thoughts could be nasty stuff, he'd learned.

So he sat on those cold-ass steps and watched people come and go. Their part of the campus wasn't the most inhabited – the tall buildings in front of the Simon Benson House were still abandoned, with ivy creeping up, eating the flaking walls with deep green, like they were ancient ruins in the middle of some wild forest in a lost part of the world. Still, there was the odd passer-by from time to time, hands in pockets and shoulders raised as a protection against the icy wind cutting like knives. Dean watched them hurriedly walk past the old house, and wondered who they were and where they came from, and whether they could still feel safe and happy four years after the end of the world. Whether they were crazy, like him.

_You're not crazy__, _Caroline countered from inside his mind.

"Shut up," he groaned. He had it with inward voices babbling to him. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. He certainly didn't want to think about _his_ oily voice seeping in his mind, through the cracks of his soul…

"Stop it," he said out loud.

"Complex PTSD," that was what Caroline had diagnosed him with. Was that some kind of upgraded PTSD? he'd asked derisively the first time he heard the expression.

"You could say so," Caroline had replied with her usual absent smile.

And she'd started to give detailed explanations in that precise tone of her's: complex post-traumatic syndrome usually resulted from prolonged exposure to a traumatic event or series thereof, with lack or loss of control, disempowerment and in the context of either captivity or entrapment – including, being an hostage or a prisoner of war, a concentration-camp survivor, having been subjected to domestic battering, prolonged physical or sexual abuse, torture. The words had washed over him and he'd blinked at her, only catching now and then words like "captivity" and "torture," bewildered that there was a word for the breaking of his mind in thousands pieces, and feeling, finally, some kind of relief.

"You talking to yourself?"

He jumped, cursed inwardly, his heart beating a thousand miles a minute, hand hovering at his back where there used to be a gun. He glared at the young woman who had just come and disturbed his peace. Kelly, who was for once without Anna, held his gaze with fiery dark eyes, and not for the first time Dean thought about how the short black hair and the scar barring her left cheek made her look like some warrior princess. He would have been all over her, once upon a time – hell, he would have been all over the fact that there was a goddamn lesbian couple living in his house. But right now, he just felt uneasy that someone who wasn't Sam was standing so close to him.

"Some warning before you sneak up on me, please," he said.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay."

He thought she was going to leave him alone now, wished for it, but she didn't move and just stood there, until he wondered what the fuck her deal was. It occurred to him, however, that she maybe wanted to go into the house, and that he was on her way.

"Um, sorry," he said, standing up and moving away to let her climb up the stairs.

But she kept staring at him, head tipped on the left, with an air of undisguised morbid fascination.

"What?" he snapped. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

She blinked like she'd just woken up, and her severe features softened a little in apology.

"God, I'm sorry." Her fingers combed through her hair. "Anna keeps telling me how fucking rude it is to stare at people, but I keep doing it anyway."

"Is it because of my drop-dead gorgeous face, or my godlike body that you can't keep your eyes off me?"

She snorted, obviously amused by his bragging, and he thought about being offended.

"I'm just intrigued by you," she answered frankly. "Anna and I have been there for three months, and we've only seen you a couple of times. It's always your… brother we're dealing with."

He almost wanted to laugh at the hesitation she had before she said the word 'brother.' People and their assumptions, really. Like with all the shit they had to deal with they would be worried about coming out of the closet.

"Sam _is_ my brother," he assured her. "Honestly, at this point I wish we were fucking, because then at least I would be fucking someone."

He'd said that impulsively, wanting to shock her for some reason, and he waited for her to gasp and for her eyes to widen, but she only raised eyebrows at him.

"What'd you mean?"

"I haven't had sex in… god, in years."

"Wow. I don't think I could ever be without sex that long. Don't you miss it?"

He shrugged. He missed the idea of sex, sure, missed the man he used to be, a little fucked up in the head but nowhere near as damaged as he was now.

"I don't have the urge anymore. Maybe forever, I don't know. It's just the way it is, I guess. But I'm not crazy," he said pointedly, thinking of how proud Caroline would be to hear him say that. "I'm traumatized, and it's a whole different animal, according to my shrink."

She did look, this time, a little overwhelmed by this flow of unasked information, and it made him feel darkly satisfied.

"Is it because of the war?" she asked, a little hesitantly.

"The war, my life," he said vaguely. No need to dwell on the subject. "Sam and I are hunters, we've been doing the job since way before the war."

"But now you need a license to hunt, right?"

"Yeah. We have new shiny licenses. Speaking of, I should let you know that Sam and I will be gone for a few days. Paul is coming with us. The kid found us a job in Government Camp."

"Government Camp?"

Something in her voice when she said the town name made him ask, "You ever been there?"

"Yeah, Anna and I went there. It was three years ago, right after the end of the war. But we didn't stay for long; the people in that shit hole are fucking crazy."

The words had Dean's spidey sense tingle, and he felt the hunter in him stir a little.

"Crazy how?"

"I don't know, it's hard to explain. They were pretty paranoid but given… everything, I can get behind that. It's just… There was a fire in town, one night. We tried to go see what was going on, but they wouldn't let us. And then Anna totally freaked out on me for some reason and we had to leave in the middle of the night. Weirdest fucking night of my life, I'm telling you."

"What was burning?"

"Don't know, and we didn't stay long enough to find out."

Dean was about to ask for more details, but he caught sight of Sam coming from above Kelly's shoulder.

"My brother's coming," he said, trying to sound as neutral as he could to hide the relief he felt flowing in.

Sam stopped near them, nodding at Kelly in greeting.

"Hey."

"Hi, Sam."

Sam's eyes went from Dean to Kelly, then to Dean again, silently asking, _you okay? _It was somewhat irritating, but Dean knew he had given his brother enough reasons to worry in the passed years and that he only had himself to blame.

"What were you two talking about?" Sam asked, making a visible effort to look casual rather than creepy.

"Kelly and Anna have been in Government Camp," Dean told him.

"Oh yeah? Did you notice anything… strange?" Still casual, and Dean was amused by how hard Sam tried to hide the intent behind the question. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that they didn't have to hide what they knew about the supernatural anymore.

"I want dinner, Sammy, so let's go," Dean said. "I'll tell you on the way."

Dean had had enough socializing for today, and he was suddenly eager to get away from Kelly, uncomfortably aware of how much he'd been spilling his guts to her. He had no idea why he'd done that. Most of the time he avoided people who were not his brother, Caroline, and several carefully chosen others, and he'd barely exchanged a few words with Kelly and Anna since they'd moved in the Simon Benson House. Maybe it was because of therapy; he always felt weirdly out of touch with himself after coming from Caroline's office.

"Well, I'll see you later, then," Kelly said.

"Um, yeah. Sam, you ready?"

Kelly went up the stairs and disappeared into the house. Dean started to walk away with long strides, hearing the thump of his brother's footsteps trying to catch up with him, feeling his eyes boring into his back.

"How was therapy?" Sam asked after a long silence.

"What kind of fucking dumb question is that? Therapy was therapy. Caroline kept pestering me with her questions, I kept trying to avoid answering them, and we danced around like that for a while until I told her everything she wanted to know. How was work?"

"It was okay. What did Kelly tell you about Government Camp?"

"That the people there are creepy. And that they're obviously hiding something."

Sam was now walking next to him, and Dean could see him smile. It was his secret smile, the one that meant he was being tentatively happy about something.

"If it sounds like a job, looks like a job…"

"…. Smells like a job, then there's probably something fishy going on. I think we're back in business, brother."

Sam laughed, and the warm echoes of his laughter surrounded Dean like a blanket.

Dean moved a little and the leather creaked under him; he brushed the wheel with his fingertips, feeling how smooth but cold it was, because it was winter and the car hadn't been used for so very long.

"Do you two need a room?" Sam said, and the words were mocking but the tone was wistful.

Dean shook his head, no witty retort coming to him, but he still didn't turn on the engine. He hadn't been behind his baby's wheel for what felt like an eternity. Sam and he were settled, they didn't need to move around as much now, and gas was so expensive anyway, it was almost a luxury… But though true, those reasons weren't the crux of the matter, not really. The truth was, the Impala was such an important part of the old Dean, and Dean hadn't felt like that man in so long. Nowadays, he sometimes barely felt in control of his own body and mind.

Paul was sitting in the back and hadn't said a word in five minutes – very unlike him, Dean mused. He poked his head between Dean and Sam and said gravely, like he wanted to make the words heavy with hidden meaning, "You have a very cool car, man."

Dean nodded curtly – it was true, after all – and reached out to the key in the ignition, but a sharp knock on the window on his side stopped him.

"What…?"

He turned his head, and saw that two black eyes were looking right at him, almond-shaped and widened in a heart-shaped face with delicate Asian features. Dean rolled his window down, brow furrowed.

"Anna?"

He glanced above the girl's shoulder and saw Kelly, standing two feet behind and watching her girlfriend with hawk-like attention. Her eyes met Dean's and she shrugged in a _I don't understand this anymore than you do_ kind of way.

"What's up?" Dean asked, trying to give his voice a reassuring inflection – Anna had always looked a little frightened by him, and he didn't want to make it worse. He was probably out of practice, because the girl took a step back and her breath caught.

"Kelly told me you were going to Government Camp?" she said softly, her intonation slightly questioning.

"Um, yes. Why do you ask?"

"Be careful. Something there is very wrong."

"Well, that's kinda why we want to go. 'Wrong' is our reason to live."

"Anna," Sam intervened, "Kelly told my brother that it was you who absolutely wanted to leave Government Camp that night. Why was that? What were you so scared of? Can you tell me?"

Anna's slim fingers found a strand of hair and clung to it. She licked her lips.

"Kelly was gone to ask what was happening with that fire, because it was burning so hot but no one was making any effort to put it out. I was alone in our room when a man came in suddenly, not knocking or anything. I tried to scream but he put his hand on my mouth, and he whispered to my ear, 'Run away, Anna, run as far as you can. Don't let them get you.'" She paused. "He sounded so urgent_._ Before I could ask what he was talking about, he was gone."

"This man knew your name?" Kelly said, sounding like she didn't know whether to be angry or worried. "You didn't tell me that. You just said that a dude told you to run… But you never said he knew your fucking name!"

"I didn't want to worry you."

"Oh, I'm not worried, _I'm pissed_!" She angrily thrust her hands in her pockets. "Who the fuck was this guy?"

"What did he look like, Anna?" Sam asked. "Did he look familiar?"

Anna nibbled her lower lip anxiously.

"It's hard to say. He was disheveled, his hands and face were black – burned, maybe. His voice sounded kind of familiar, though, but I've thought about it again and again and I've never been able to place it."

"He didn't try to hurt you?"

"No. I really think he was trying to protect me, that's why I begged Kelly to leave… He just sounded so earnest, you know. Oh, and there was something else. He was crying."

Dean and Sam exchanged a long look, but it was Paul who said, "Crying?"

"Yeah. Or more like he'd just been crying – the tears had left lighter traces on his face, and his voice sounded congested."

"Did you see any… weird shadows that night? Or when you were at Government Camp?" Paul asked, and the girls both looked at him with a genuinely puzzled expression.

"What do you mean?" Kelly said.

"Like… human-shaped shadows when there's no one else in the room. Moving quickly. Maybe with red eyes?"

"No, I think I'd remember that," Kelly snorted. "Anna?" Anna shook her head.

"Okay," Dean said, putting two hands on the wheel as a sign that he was more than ready to go. "Thanks for the tip, Anna. We should go now, we're burning daylight. We would have left this morning, but _someone_," he sent a reproaching look in Paul's direction, "took forever to get ready."

"Will you be careful?" Anna asked concernedly, and Dean wondered why she cared so much when she barely knew them.

"Careful is my middle name, sweetheart," he smirked.

Kelly glowered, Sam tried to hide his smile, and Paul lifted a surprised eyebrow. Dean shifted uncomfortably on his seat, making the leather creak again, and cleared his throat.

"We're going, now, move away," he grumbled.

Kelly and Anna stepped away as he turned the key in the ignition. The sweet sound of his baby's rumble filled the inside of the car, and he couldn't help but grin, his usually frayed nerves soothed by the comfort and the familiarity of the noise.

The car smoothly slid on the road. Sam and Paul were waving like dorks at Kelly and Anna. Dean just looked right in front of him, at the never-ending line of the road, and lost himself in the mindless bliss of driving.


	3. Chapter 3

_For author's note and disclaimer, see chapter one. _

**Chapter 3**

The sky was gray and low, heavy, the white top of the mountain merging with the clouds, and the high fir trees pointed towards it like arrows, giving the scenery a threatening air. The Impala rolled down the street until Paul told Dean to stop in front of an imposing building with a steeply sloping roof. On the sign was written vertically: 'Huckleberry Inn.' No one was outside, but they'd seen heads peering through the houses' windows, observing the strangers' arrival with stern faces.

"Can't you just feel the love coming in waves?" Dean said wryly, but Sam could see by the way his hands were gripping the wheel, by the contraction of his jaw, that his brother was nervous – which made Sam nervous in turn. He wondered if this hunt was such a good idea after all, if his brother was ready for this, if he would ever be.

"Dude, chill out," Dean muttered, low enough that Paul wouldn't overhear him. Sam glanced at him and twitched his lips into a half-hearted smile.

"Let's go," Sam said, opening the door on his side, feeling the biting cold burn his nose and cheeks. It was eerily silent outside, like the town was holding its breath.

A blond girl, who Sam recognized as Amy, came to them with a face-splitting grin. She was petite, barely reaching Sam's chest, and had her arms folded and her hands under her armpits to protect herself from the chilly air.

"Hey, guys!" she called cheerfully, and she looked like she wanted to add something to her greeting, but Paul silenced her with his mouth, kissing her until Dean coughed loudly, ignoring his brother's glare.

"'Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?'" Dean said. "Seriously, guys, not that I don't appreciate a French kiss demonstration as much as the next guy, but can we move to somewhere less cold?"

The couple separated and Amy's face turned a bright red, a striking contrast with her usual pale complexion.

"Oh, right. Sorry. It's cold out there, isn't it? Um, sorry."

"It's okay, Amy." Sam moved to the Impala's trunk to take their bags, rolling his eyes at his brother. "Don't mind my brother, he can't resist making French jokes around Paul."

"He's like the big brother I never wanted," Paul said. "Moments like that are when I miss my sisters."

"I've always wanted to have sisters," Sam commented, which earned him an outraged look from his brother.

"What? Haven't I always been good to you? You're killing me, bro," Dean said dramatically, and hoisted a bag on his shoulder with a grimace. "Jesus, what the fuck did you put in that bag, bricks?"

"I didn't know what we were after, so I took a good number of the books we got from Bobby."

He saw his brother's expression darken at the mention of their friend. Bobby had been killed by demons several months before the end of the war, during an ugly ambush – they'd come too late to save him, had been left with nothing more than a mangled body to cry over. Sam had always thought that his death had been what had motivated the crazy plan Dean had come up with to put an end to the nightmare that was the demon war. Sam had been desperate enough at the time to agree to it, and to add some even crazier ideas of his own. To their credit, it had worked, but everyday Sam felt the weight of what it had cost them.

"Sam? Hello, Earth to Sam?"

"Hmm, what?"

"Should we go in before our dicks freeze and fall off, or what?"

Sam nodded and slammed the trunk shut. He caught up with his brother, and they fell into step easily. Paul and Amy were walking far away before them, hand in hand and completely engrossed in each other. Dean's head turned to look at Sam sideways.

"You okay? Your head hurts?"

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you if you're okay?"

"You're always the one asking me that, nowadays. Can't it be my turn for once?"

"I'm okay; head's fine. Just thinking about Bobby."

"Yeah." A silence. "I miss him too."

"Yeah."

Sam sometimes wondered if things would have turned the way they did if Bobby had been alive. If he would have agreed to their plan, if he would have seen sooner than Sam that Dean wasn't okay after the war. When Dean had hit rock bottom, Sam had keenly felt his friend's absence. Castiel had been there, and he'd helped in his own way even if sometimes the human psyche still mystified him, but at the time Sam had really needed a little parental support.

Dean's jaw twitched, his eyes fixed on a spot on the ground.

"Well," he said, "at least he didn't have to see me the way I was when…"

Dean didn't have the time to complete his sentence, because they were now inside the Huckleberry Inn, where they found Amy and Paul talking to an older woman. All three of them had turned their heads at their entrance.

"Sam, Dean, come in," Amy said. She held out her hands in the woman's direction, palms to the sky in an introducing gesture. "Guys, this is my aunt, Stacey Gibson. Aunt Stacey, Sam and Dean Winchester, the hunters who came to help us."

Stacey Gibson smiled politely at the brothers. Her face was smooth, which made it difficult to give her an age, and her brown hair pulled back in a tight bun gave her a severe look. There was something in her eyes, though, something wary, sad even – but then who wasn't sad and wary these days?

"You must be tired," she said. "The road between Portland and here isn't as good as it used to be."

"It was better than the last time I came," Paul said. "I think some work has been done on it."

"Good. Maybe one day we'll have tourists again, then."

It could have been humor, an attempt at breaking the ice, had it come from someone else, but from Mrs. Gibson it just sounded coldly bitter.

"Amy will show you to your rooms," she said after a few seconds of uneasy silence. "I have a lot to do."

"We understand," Sam said, though he wondered what on earth she could have to do in this ghost town.

"Come with me, guys," Amy said with a smile so broad it showed all her teeth, as cheery as her aunt was bleak. Before they started following her, Mrs. Gibson stopped them in their tracks. "I hope you'll find what you're looking for," she said.

Sam raised his eyebrows at her strange wording.

"Um, we hope too. You… know why we're here, don't you?"

"I do," she said serenely.

"Have you ever seen these shadows?"

"I didn't. Any more questions?"

"No, thank you."

"Then I'll be going, if you don't mind. Good bye."

They watched her walk away, a little confused.

"Don't mind her," Amy said, looking slightly embarrassed. "She… The war… She went through a lot. And the way things are now, with the town almost dead, it's not helping."

"Government Camp used to be a ski resort, right?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, well, it was mostly a gateway to other ski resorts, like Timberline Lodge and Mount Skibowl. We have our own smaller ski resort, Summit Ski Area. And we could still make it work, it wasn't destroyed during the war, but…"

"People just aren't in the mood for skiing, are they?" Dean said.

"No, they aren't." Amy put on a brave smile. "But they will be. We just have to be patient. Look after the equipment, and one day people will come back. At least the roads are better, so it's something. Wanna see your rooms, now?"

"Uh, yeah," Dean said. "But when you say 'rooms' you… Isn't Paul sleeping with you? Not that it's any of my business…"

"Oh, he is. I meant rooms for you. We have more than enough rooms for you to each have one. A few people are living here permanently, but we don't have any customers."

"It's very nice, but… Sam and I would rather share the same room. My brother's scared of the dark, you see," Dean joked awkwardly, fidgeting a little with uneasiness. Amy looked at him in puzzlement, but nodded.

"However you want. Follow me, please?"

She led them to a room with twin beds, green curtains, and honey-colored furniture. It smelled like wood and varnish. They put their bags on the beds, and Sam took a peek through their window, but couldn't see anything more than tree trunks.

"Amy," he called. "You said that there were people living here?"

He stopped looking through the windows and turned to the girl.

"Yes. My aunt and I, the old Mrs. Griffith, and my friend Colleen and her dad. Colleen is the one who was attacked. There was someone else, Dr. Patterson, but he disappeared like a month ago."

"Disappeared?"

"Yes. He liked going out for long walks in the mountain, and one day he just didn't come back. We looked for him, but we couldn't find him or his body."

"Did he mention seeing any shadows?"

"Not to me, but that doesn't mean anything."

"To your aunt, maybe?"

Amy shrugged, shook her head and slipped a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I don't know. But she would have mentioned it to you when you asked her about the shadows, wouldn't she?"

Sam was in the process of taking his jacket off, but he slowed his movement and exchanged a quick glance with his brother.

"I don't know, Amy. Would she? You know your aunt better than we do."

Amy shrugged again. She moved to step out of the room and bumped into Paul who was standing right behind her.

"I have to help my aunt with dinner. I'll come and get you when it's ready."

Sam and Dean nodded in agreement and let her go. Paul cast a last look their way before following her.

"What do you think?" Dean asked once they were alone.

"Amy looks afraid," Sam said.

"Yeah. Of her aunt, maybe? The old hag sure doesn't look like she wants us to help." Dean looked thoughtful. "Or maybe Amy's afraid of us."

"Why? It doesn't make sense, she was the one who called for help," Sam said, but made a mental note to keep an eye on Amy. Hell, make that keep an eye on everyone. Some bad surprises were awaiting them in this town, he was sure of it.

Sam rummaged around in his bag until he found his gun, checked it, and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. He looked up to Dean, and their eyes locked for a second, before his hand went into his bag again and came out with another gun. He held it to Dean without a word, and his brother took it reverently.

"Does it mean you judge me fit for service, sir?" He said that jokingly, but sounding at the same time breathless and hopeful.

Sam clapped him on the shoulder and smiled.

ooo

Dinner was served in what used to be the inn's restaurant. The wood ceiling and walls gave a homey feeling to the room, but it was empty save for Sam, Dean, Amy and Paul, gathered at one lonely table.

"Where is everybody?" Sam asked, looking around.

"Well," Amy said, "Mrs. Griffith usually eats in her room, Colleen and her dad will probably join us soon." She pointed to the plates and forks and knives on another table. "And my aunt has already eaten."

Sam wondered whether Mrs. Gibson was avoiding them, or always had dinner before the other residents. The 'old hag,' as Dean called her, was obviously hiding something, and wasn't happy about the hunters' presence. Had she seen the shadows? Why would she hide it from them if she had? Sam had learned that some people just didn't like strangers meddling in their problems, and the demon war wouldn't have made it better, especially in a small town like Government Camp. Stacey Gibson could just be the kind of person who liked to keep it to herself. Or she could know what was going on – causing it, maybe. Sam was interrupted in his musings by Amy's voice, "Here they are. Hey, Colleen, Mr. Ullman!"

A skinny girl, with hair as red as Paul's, came to their table. She was shadowed by a gigantic man – even from Sam's perspective – whose face was almost entirely hidden by a bushy beard. Colleen smiled tentatively at Amy while her eyes hovered wearily on the Winchesters. Sam noticed that her neck was covered by a scarf.

"Colleen, you recognize my boyfriend Paul? And Sam and Dean Winchester are the hunters I told you about."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, and Sam saw his brother pinch his lips. Mr. Ullman turned his bright blue gaze on the brothers until Sam felt like squirming on his seat, and said nothing, didn't even nod in greeting. Colleen's smile went wider, though, and she looked genuinely hopeful.

"Oh, I hope you'll find this thing and put an end to it. I don't know how much more I can bear."

"Have you seen the shadows again since the attack?" Sam asked.

"Yes, I…"

"Colleen," her father's voice boomed from somewhere above their heads.

"Coming, Dad. Okay, I think we should talk about that later. Dinner will get cold."

Her father turned his huge back to them and started walking to the table ready for him and his daughter. Colleen looked like she was going to follow him, but she stopped herself, bent suddenly towards Sam, who was closest to her.

"Every night," she whispered. "I see them every goddamn night."

Then she straightened quickly, smiled brightly like she hadn't said anything and gave them a little wave of the hand.

"See you, guys!"

When the girl and her father were out of earshot, Dean leaned over the table and said to Amy in a low voice, "We were supposed to be here incognito, right? Because maybe I've finally gone off my rocker, but I think I remember pretty well that the reason we let Paul come with us was to have a cover story 'cause the townsfolk are fucking paranoid."

"Um, yeah…"

"Well, it's not gonna work if you tell every goddamn person we meet who we are!"

"Colleen was attacked by the shadows! She deserves to know that someone is working to solve the problem!"

"That's not the fucking point!"

Sam examined Amy closely while she was defending herself against Dean's reproaches. Her eyes had widened in an attempt to look innocent, but she was nervously fingering the hem of her shirt with one hand, while the other was stuck between her thighs.

"Okay, _temps mort_!" Dean and Amy stopped arguing in low voices, and looked at Paul curiously. "What is done is done," Paul said, "we have no way to make the Ullmans or Mrs. Gibson forget that you're hunters. So can we eat dinner now?"

They both agreed, grudgingly on Dean's part, with a hint of relief on Amy's, and dinner was calm, almost uneasily so. Dean was on edge, Amy was subdued, and Paul kept an unusual silence. It didn't seem to be more talkative on the side of Colleen and her father – not a word came from their table, only the clatter of forks and knives against the plates.

The rest of the night was as uneventful. Amy slipped away to help her aunt, Sam and Dean stayed with Paul and talked a little about their first impressions on the case. Dean claimed he had his doubts about Amy's intentions, Paul defended her ardently until Dean told him point-blank that one, he wasn't the experienced hunter here, and two, he was thinking with his dick so he should shut up and let the professionals do their job.

Paul had never seemed vexed by Dean's harsh mannerisms, knowing enough not to take them personally, but even he apparently had his limits because his face reddened with outrage and he clenched his teeth.

"Right. Goodnight."

He stood up stiffly, walked to get out of the room.

"_Connard__,_" they heard before he slammed the door.

"I don't know what it means, but it didn't sound very nice," Dean said.

Sam rolled his eyes, the movement old and comfortingly familiar – he'd missed doing that.

"Did you have to be an asshole to the kid?"

"What? I told the truth – we're talking about his girlfriend, dude can't think clearly. And don't tell me you're not suspicious of Amy. Either the girl is dumb, or she has some hidden agenda. I mean, the people here are more suspicious than a tax officer. What do you bet that tomorrow everyone know that we're hunters? They sure won't help us now, and worse, maybe they'll try to make our job harder."

"Yeah, maybe. Well, like Paul said, there's nothing we can do about it, now."

They went to bed after that. Dean took the meds that knocked him out as sure as a punch to the face, but Sam remained lying down with his eyes open for a long time, listening to the wind howling outside through the trees, sounding like a desperate cry for help.

When he finally found sleep, it was like falling into a bottomless pit.

ooo

Sam woke up trembling, a strange bitter taste in his mouth – blood – and his heart pounding loudly, deafeningly. Confused, he looked around him. Moonlight filled the room, casting shadows on the walls. It wasn't their room at the Simon Benson House, where was…

_Dean._

Panicked, Sam straightened in his bed, peered through the darkness, looking for his brother. There was a bed next to his, a human-shaped lump on it, and he could hear his brother's deep breathing. _Good, that's good__. _Except he couldn't quite calm down, his heart still throwing itself madly against his ribs. _What the hell,_ he thought. _What the fuck is happening?_

The shadows on the wall were moving. It was branches from the fir trees outside, agitated by a furious wind. Sam couldn't avert his eyes from them, transfixed. The moon shone so brightly, the shadows stood out clearly against the wall like in a shadow show. It looked like… It looked like the back of a shoulder, a hat and long hair, like someone was born from the shadows and was just extricating himself from them. It moved slowly, turning its head – or what looked like it could be a head – just enough to face Sam, and Sam shut his eyes, childishly trying to protect himself from whatever it was that was looking at him. He opened them a few seconds later, his breath short.

There was nothing on the wall but the shadows of tree branches moving lightly through the wind.

ooo

"I have to say, as much as Mrs. Gibson freaks me the fuck out, those were some damn good muffins. So good that I suspect she's trying to lull us with food, kind of like the wicked witch in Hansel and Gretel… Hey, Sam, you listening to me?"

The sky looked huge, Sam reflected absently, somehow much bigger than in Portland, and some blue spots were showing here now and there among the gray.

"Sam!"

"Hmm, what?"

Dean stopped walking. Sam stopped too and looked at his brother questioningly.

"What's the matter?"

"I should be the one asking you that. You're so deep in thought that you could walk right into a lamppost, and say, 'sorry, ma'am.'"

"Uh, yeah, sorry. I was just trying to remember my dream."

"And what was so special about your dream?" Dean wriggled his eyebrows. "Was it a wet dream? Tell me it wasn't one of those Cassandra dreams again."

Sam's brow furrowed in astonishment, "Dude, your erratic knowledge of Greek mythology will never cease to amaze me."

"I'm glad I can still surprise you after all these years, honey. So, this dream?"

Sam shrugged.

"It was just a dream, I think. Just… I woke up with a weird feeling, like there's a word on the tip of my tongue, only it's not a word but a strange… whatever. Something waiting for me at the corner. It's bugging me. But if it was a premonition, I would remember it clearly."

"Yeah. Well, if it was just a dream, it can't be very important. Just…" Dean trailed off, looking somewhere above Sam's shoulder. "Hey, look, here come the friendly town folks, complete with pitch forks."

Sam turned, and saw a man and woman walking with intent in their direction. Contrary to the people they'd passed in the street, who were mostly just trying to ignore them, the couple was looking right at them. The man, at least, was clearly unhappy.

"You're the hunters?" he asked bluntly once he was close enough.

Dean threw a Sam a look that said, _See? What did I tell you?_

"What if we are?" he said defiantly. Sam cringed at his brother's aggressiveness, and said in a more amiable tone, "We're hunters. And you are?"

The man blushed a little, ashamed at his own behavior or angry at the brothers' impertinence – it was difficult to say with the way his eyebrows seemed fixed in a permanent frown.

"My name is Ethan Torrance." He pointed his thumb to the woman behind him, who was chewing her lip nervously. "My wife, Elizabeth. We're the owners of the 'Mountain Tracks.'" When he saw no sign of recognition in the brothers, he added, "It's – it was – a ski rental, just next to the Huckleberry Inn."

"Okay. What can we do for you Mr. Torrance?" Sam asked.

"You can get out of here. We don't need any hunters putting their noses in this town's business."

Sam didn't let the man's harshness faze him – he'd faced worse, and the man actually looked more nervous than threatening.

"We're just trying to help," he said in his sweetest, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth tone. "We've heard that strange things were happening in your town. Have you ever seen any weird shadows?"

"Colleen Ullman is crazy!" Ethan Torrance blurted out. Sam frowned at the non sequitur. "You shouldn't listen to a word she says."

"Well, from what we've heard, she isn't the only one to say that. How many crazy people are there in Government Camp, Mr. Torrance?"

Mr. Torrance pressed his lips in discontentment.

"There's nothing wrong in Government Camp. Nothing that's any of your business." He turned to his wife. "We're going, Lizzie." She nodded, and trotted quickly behind her husband who was walking away in long angry strides.

Sam and Dean looked at the couple leaving, then at each other. Dean shrugged.

"Weird people, huh?"

"Yeah. Ethan Torrance seemed really anxious to see us leave. What is he afraid we might find out?"

"Did you notice how Elizabeth Torrance's hand kept going to her neck?"

Sam hadn't, focused as he was on the husband, but he trusted his brother's word on it. As Dean had pretty much stopped talking to strangers, he'd started to get really good at observing people and catching little details like this.

"You think she was attacked by the shadows too?"

"Hard to say without seeing her neck without a scarf, but yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. Maybe the husband was attacked too, who knows."

Sam started walking again, confident that Dean was going to follow him.

"The shadows haven't killed anyone so far," he thought aloud, "except maybe the elusive Dr. Patterson – that is, if his disappearance has anything to do with the shadow attacks."

"It could mean several things," Dean went on, picking up easily on Sam's train of thought. "Maybe the attacks are escalating – it starts with innocent sightings, then the things get angrier and angrier, and try to strangle people, but they're not angry enough yet or don't have the juice to manage it."

"Maybe they're countered by something. Remember, Paul told us that the shadow stopped strangling Colleen when her father turned on the light. They could be scared of light because they're made of shadows – like daevas."

"Yeah. Speaking of…"

"I don't think it can be daevas – no one was torn to shreds."

"Good point. Not daevas, then."

"We should try to talk to Mrs. Torrance," Sam said. "We should ask her how she stopped the shadows from killing her. It would help us determine whether the shadow choking Colleen didn't finish her because of the light, or because it was scared off by Colleen's dad."

"Who is one scary dude, yeah. But on the other hand, perhaps the shadows aren't out to kill anyone. Like, maybe all they want is to freak people out, because it's how they get their rocks off, or because they want them to leave."

Sam gave his brother a surprised look.

"You're going with the charitable option? Not like you, bro."

"Well, it's just an idea," Dean shrugged. "I'm all for getting rid of the creepy shadows. It's just strange that they haven't killed anyone yet. Who can stop shadows? They could do so much more damage."

"Yeah, you're right. I think we should…" He stopped suddenly.

"Sam, what is it?" he heard his brother call behind his back.

They'd been walking down Government Camp Loop for a good fifteen minutes, now, not really paying attention to where they were going, too engrossed in their conversation. But Sam had raised his head and his eyes had caught something behind the high fir trees bordering the road.

"Look at that." He pointed his finger. "Doesn't it look like…"

Dean took a few steps to position himself at Sam's side and look in the same direction.

"Like the remains of a burned building? Come on, let's get a look."

This time, Dean took the lead. The trees became an open space and they were walking on what looked very much like it was a fire scene. It didn't seem recent, though; nature had reasserted itself and there was grass and weeds and some bushes growing between old charred pieces of wood and stones, and darkened earth.

"What do you think?" Dean said. "Look like it could be the remains of a three year-old fire?"

Their eyes met, and Sam knew they were thinking about the same thing. The fire Kelly and Anna had told them about.

"Well, I'm no expert, but I haven't seen anything else in this town that seemed burned."

They both walked around in silence, looking for clues, for hints about what happened. Sam first looked down at the ground, but the event was too old and he couldn't tell anything more than that something had burned, probably a big building. He looked up.

"Hey," he said. "Look at the trees."

Dean looked.

"What about them?"

"Some of them are pretty close to whatever burned, but they look intact. If they got burned, it was mild enough."

"And what do you get from that, Sherlock?"

"This building wasn't small." Sam gestured to encompass the space around him. "Yet it burned entirely. They let the building burn, but were careful about not letting the fire spread to the surrounding trees, 'cause it would have become incontrollable."

"They? You mean our friends from Government Camp?" Dean looked thoughtfully at the trees, then at the burned ground. "Think there were people in there?" He pinched his lips tightly.

Sam thought about it – white-hot heat and the smell of burned flesh and hair. He shuddered.

"Jesus," he whispered. The memories clung to his skin like a sweaty t-shirt. He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice his brother wandering away until Dean called.

"Hey, Sam!"

Sam looked around and found his brother standing near a tree, a hand on the trunk and looking at the dirt near a big root.

"What did you find?" Sam asked once he was with him. He looked down and found the answer by himself. The earth around was hard as stone because of the cold, but on one place there was a slight mount of recently disturbed dirt.

"Shit," Sam said. "It looks like an unmarked grave."

"It does, doesn't it," Dean said, but before he could add anything a voice made the brothers spin around quickly.

"Hey, guys!"

It was Paul. The young man was trotting to them, hands in his pockets.

"There you are! I looked everywhere for you."

His eyes flickered to Dean.

"Uh, Dean."

"Yeah?"

"Sorry about yesterday, dude."

"It's okay." Dean wasn't looking at Sam but he must have sensed his insistent glare on him because he continued, "I'm, uh, sorry too. Sometimes I'm an asshole."

"Well. Okay."

There was an awkward silence until Sam said, "So, Paul. You wanted to tell us something?"

"Oh, I was just wondering where you were. And, um…" He hesitated. "I think I should talk to Colleen. To, you know, find out what she knows. I think it would be better if it was me and not you, because her father seems to be onto you."

"Okay, you do that," Sam said before Dean had time to protest.

"Oh." Paul looked a little taken aback. "Cool. So… see you at lunch?"

"Yeah."

Paul turned, as if to go, but Sam stopped him.

"Oh, Paul. Do you know what burned here? It must have been one hell of a fire."

"Hmm…" Paul frowned. "I think it was… a museum. Yes, that's it – the Mt Hood Cultural Center and Museum. At least that's what Amy told me because I've never seen it. It burned a little after the war. Oh." His eyes widened. "A fire – Anna talked about a fire."

"Yes. We think it was probably this fire. Unless you've heard about other fires…?"

"No, just this one. I'm sorry I didn't remember the museum earlier. Amy just told me about it this one time."

"It's okay, now we know. You should go talk to Colleen."

"Yeah."

Paul ran away quickly, like he was afraid Sam was going to change his mind if he stayed too long. When he was far enough, Dean turned to his brother.

"Is there a reason we didn't tell him about the possible grave we've just discovered? You don't trust him?"

"He would have maybe told Amy."

"Who would have maybe told it to someone else. Yeah, good call."

"We should come back during the night to dig. I'm really curious about what or who was buried there."

Dean snorted.

"Sounds like the good old days."

It shouldn't have made Sam feel so nostalgic.

ooo

They spent the day trying to talk to Mrs. Torrance alone, but her husband seemed to shadow her wherever she went. It looked like the whole town knew who they were and why they were here, so that no one was willing to do more than looked at them distrustfully. Paul's interrogation of Colleen was fruitless – they learned nothing that they didn't already know, except that the shadows hadn't tried to attack again, though she saw them almost every night and they scared the shit out of her.

The night came and they decided they were going to wait for a few hours, to make sure everyone was asleep, before going out to dig up their mysterious grave. The plan was to stay awake, but when Sam woke with a start, he cursed at himself for falling asleep. What time was it, anyway?

"Dean?"

They'd turned off the light so as not to make the other residents suspicious, but Sam could make out his brother's slumped form against the headboard of his bed. Despite not taking any sleeping pills tonight, Dean apparently hadn't resisted sleep either.

Sam was going to stand and shake his brother awake, but he caught a movement at the corner of his eye and turned quickly.

"Who's there?"

His voice sounded weird and he wondered whether he'd actually talked out loud. His hand fumbled around in the dark to get hold of his gun on the nightstand. Goddamn branch shadows were moving on the wall and it made it harder to distinguish if there was anyone moving silently through the darkness. There wasn't any noise but Sam was convinced he wasn't alone. His heart was pounding so hard it almost hurt, and the fear growing inside of him felt solid and foreign, and it had a life of its own. His breathing was erratic – he tried to keep it under control but couldn't, like his body wasn't _his_ anymore.

"Dean," he called softly, almost plaintively, but his brother remained unmoving. Was he even breathing? Suddenly Sam wasn't sure. He stepped forward to check, bumped into the nightstand, and there, _there. _The shadow was on the wall, human-shaped and so dark, darker than the absence of light, malevolence oozing from it like all the horrors of Sam's life had condensed into one form and were trying to suck him in. Sam's hands gripped his gun, his breath speeding up, and he pointed the weapon at the shadow.

He wanted to do something, anything, fight back, make it go away, but his mind was hazy with panic, his vision blurry with unshed tears.

"No, no," he muttered.

Couldn't let it get close, couldn't let it get to his brother, God, he had to protect Dean, what if he was already dead, shut up, shut up, it can't be, _can't be_…

The light turned on, sudden and blinding, and he blinked owlishly.

"Fuck," Dean swore loudly. "What the fuck just happened?"


	4. Chapter 4

_For author's note and disclaimer, see chapter one._

**Chapter 4**

"Sam?"

Dean had woken up, heard a whining noise, turned on the light and found Sam standing in the middle of their room, his gun pointed to the wall, his hands trembling. He looked freaked, upset like Dean hadn't seen him since… _that_ day – and Dean really didn't need the memories it stirred, of the hospital, of Sam unable to stay still and chewing on his fingernails until he drew blood. The worst here was that Dean didn't know what had caused Sam to look like that. It was enough to stop him from marveling at the fact that he'd managed to sleep for several hours straight without taking any drugs.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean called again, approaching his brother slowly, careful not too make any sudden movements. "What's going on, dude?" He put a gentle hand on Sam's wrist, making him lower his arms. "Sam? Talk to me, you're freaking me out."

It was true, shameful as it was. He hadn't been the sane one, the solid one in years, and he wasn't sure how to do it anymore. If Sam was losing it, leaving him alone to deal with the crazy paranoid people, he didn't know what… Sam pushed his hand away, went to sit down on the bed under Dean's anxious stare. He exhaled shakily, rubbed his face. Dean waited.

"I, uh," Sam said. "I think I saw the shadows. Or at least I saw one shadow, and it sure as fuck wasn't a normal shadow."

"Yeah? What happened?" Dean asked.

"It looked like a man… with a hat. It went away when you turned on the light, so I guess we have the answer to our question. They're scared of light."

"Did it try to do anything? Did it… attack you? You looked pretty freaked out."

"It didn't do anything. It was just… there." Sam pressed against his forehead with his fingertips. "I think it messed with my head, though."

"What do you mean?"

"It… did something to me. I was… freaked, like you said. It felt like… all the things that went wrong in my life were suddenly coming back to me, and I…" He glanced at Dean, a glimpse of naked helplessness in his eyes. "I was so scared it was going to do something to you. That it had already done something to you."

Dean wanted to say something comforting.

"I'm okay. It didn't do anything to me."

Sam shook his head.

"I know. It was completely irrational, which is why I think the shadow did this. I don't know if those things want to kill people, but they're bad. They're bad, Dean."

"Okay, Sam, it's alright, everything is fine. We're gonna take care of it."

"Yeah." Sam pushed himself up. "Let's go, we have a grave to dig."

"Wait, you wanna do that now?"

"Isn't it what we decided?"

"Yes, but-" Dean looked his brother up and down. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Sam replied a little impatiently. "We're both awake now. It makes no sense to wait for another day."

Dean raised his hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay. Let's do some old school grave digging then."

They got dressed and silently slipped out of their room, out of the Huckleberry Inn, like they were shadows sliding on the walls among the other shadows, at home in the dark. They stopped at the Impala to get a shovel and a pickax, and some other hunting equipment, and started to walk down the road. Had the moon been bright enough, they would have avoided using their flashlights before they got out of the road, but the night was black like an impenetrable veil had been drawn on the sky, suppressing all light, so Dean switched his on and used his hand to dim the light.

"How did you sleep?" Sam asked softly, breaking the silence.

"It was actually okay. I didn't even realize I was sleeping until I woke up."

"You didn't have any dreams?"

"No. Nothing. A black hole." And for that, he was fucking grateful.

It took Dean some time to find the unmarked grave in the darkness. Dean wasn't afraid of the dark, he'd never been, but there was something unnerving about the thick blackness of this night. There was a constant tingle between his shoulder blades, like they weren't alone, like they were being observed, but no matter how much Dean strained to listen, there was never any noise betraying the presence of someone else, and Dean had a sharp hearing. He thought about asking Sam if he felt it too, but his brother was tense and edgy, probably still reeling from his encounter with the shadows, so Dean kept his feelings to himself. It was probably just his mind playing tricks on him again.

Dean took the pickax, Sam the shovel, and they started working in coordination with each other, fighting to dig the hardened ground. The exercise was repetitive and soothing, and it felt good, even if his arms vibrated each time his pickax hit the earth, and his muscles very soon burned with the exercise, showing how frustratingly out of shape he was. It was familiar and uncomplicated. Just a man, his pickax, a flashlight stuck under his armpit, and a body to dig up. Yeah, that was life. At his side, Sammy was puffing and blowing like an asthmatic steam engine, the white cloud of his breath floating like mist in front of his mouth. They didn't have to dig too deep before they smelled a putrid stench, sharp in the cold air, and they knew they were close to their goal. Then Sam exclaimed, "Got something!"

There was some white mingled with the dark of the dirt. They used their shovel and pickax, then their hands, to uncover it completely. It was obvious that they were faced with a body wrapped in a sheet, and Sam removed the sheet where it looked like the head was. The decayed smell assaulted their nostrils and they both covered the lower part of their faces with their arms, while Dean directed the beam of the flashlight to better see.

It was a man, in his fifties, with broken glasses. The face was emaciated, cheekbones pointing under livid skin, the features frozen in a mask-like expression – but it was still intact, so the body couldn't have been here for too long. The eyes had been closed but the mouth was half open and contorted in a grimace, like the man would be shouting if he was still breathing. A larva crawled out of one of his nostrils, and Dean shivered in disgust. He wasn't grossed-out easily, but creepy crawlies worming their way through your body, that shit was just wrong. Or maybe he was just too out of practice. He stopped breathing, and went through the man's pockets with quick efficiency. There was nothing.

"What do you say?" Sam said, his voice muffled by the arm pressed against his mouth. "Does it look like a one-month body to you?"

"Good old Dr. Patterson? The dude Amy said vanished into the thin air? Could be. That would explain why they didn't find him on the mountain. He never even left the town."

"And someone here probably killed him, and buried him beneath a tree."

"Fucking creeps. We'll have to ask Amy what Dr. Patterson looked like, because I'm not dragging the body to her room for an identification."

"We should burn it, anyway."

Dean looked at his brother, or at what he could see of his brother in the shadowy light.

"Man, this is gonna stink, I don't have to tell you." He sighed. The perks of the job. "But, yeah. The man was murdered and thrown into a hole in the ground. That's some primary vengeful spirit material."

"Yeah."

"Think it could have something to do with the… shadow thing?"

Sam was pensive for a minute.

"Hmm, I don't know. It wouldn't be like any ghosts we've ever encountered, but there was this fire, too, and maybe just too many people died, here… Huh."

Dean waited a little for his brother to voice his thoughts, but nothing came.

"What?" he finally asked. "You think of something?"

"Maybe. I'd have to check… Okay, let's burn the goddamn body."

Sam got on his feet and started to rummage in his bag. Dean tried not to be irritated by how evasive his brother was – he knew that Sam liked to check on some facts before he started sharing his theories.

Burning the body stank as much as Dean had imagined it would. The smell was terrible and they took a few steps back so it wouldn't cling to their clothes. Afterwards, they refilled the hole in the ground, burying the ashes where the body had been.

"RIP, dude," Dean said as a eulogy once they had tamped down the dirt with the back of the shovel.

"Before we leave," Sam said, "I want to check if there's EMF where the Museum burned."

Dean shrugged. It was probably something like 3 or 4 am, but he felt very awake and energized like he hadn't in years. Besides, it was a good idea.

"Knock yourself out, man."

Sam snorted, and walked until he was about right in the center of what used to be the Mt Hood Cultural Center and Museum. Dean followed him, all senses in alert. Somehow, the uneasy feeling of not being alone had just increased, and now Dean felt like whatever it was, it didn't wish them any good. Mean, and old and patient, it was watching them, watching their every move until…

The EMF reader shrilled and lit up with red; Dean started, and his heart jumped in his throat.

"Jesus fucking…"

"Feeling jumpy, brother?"

Whether or not Sam meant to be mocking, he mostly sounded worried.

"I don't know," Dean said. "It feels like…"

"Hello?"

The brothers swirled round in one synchronized movement and pointed their flashlights where the voice came from. Dean swiftly hid the pickax behind his back, and a faint scratching noise told him that Sam was doing the same with the shovel. The person was probably just out of the reach of their flashlights' beams, because Dean barely saw anything more than the shadowed figure of a man of average height, and it was putting him on edge.

"Who are you?" Sam asked tensely.

Dean was expecting the person to turn the questions back on them. The people here were so fucking paranoid, and even without that, strangers lurching about at night were rarely a good sign – not to mention that they'd just burned a body. But it seemed that they had stumbled on the only polite man in the place, because the voice simply answered the question, "My name is James Hardison. You?"

Dean could feel his brother pondering his answer, and he certainly wasn't going to say anything before Sam did. He didn't trust himself anymore when it came to dealing with people, and it was tacitly established between them that Sam was in charge of all social interactions. Dean wished he would hurry up, though, before the man decided that he had enough with being nice. He flexed his fingers, that were getting numb because of the cold.

"Can I come closer?" the man said. "I'm unarmed."

The man walked into the light and raised his hands, fingers outspread. Dean slid a hand behind his back, just to feel the comforting weight of his gun.

"Come closer," Sam said, sounding eerily like their dad, so damn assured and bossy even though they were the ones at fault here. Digging up bodies in the middle of the night and all that. "Keep your hands up."

The man walked slowly to them. As he came closer, Dean could distinguish some features – the gray hair and beard, the deep lines of age and sorrow. He looked harmless enough, and Dean relaxed minutely.

"You're the hunters."

Hardison wasn't asking. Dean contained a groan and cursed Amy inwardly. Everyone knew about them now. Some undercover job this was.

"We are," Sam answered serenely. "I'm Sam. He's Dean."

"Winchester?"

"That's what you've heard, huh?"

"Uh, no. I haven't heard anything, except that there were hunters around. People here don't talk to me much. I am – was – a hunter too, you see."

Huh. That was a surprise. A hunter, in this town? Maybe a possible ally, but Dean wasn't going to hold his breath too much on that one, because they hadn't always had the best relationship with hunters.

"So you've heard about us," Dean said.

He felt more than he saw Sam's head turning to look at him, maybe surprised by Dean's sudden willingness to take part in the conversation. Well, he thought wryly, he couldn't stay mute forever.

"I've met your father. He was… an interesting man."

Dean snorted. Sam spoke for him.

"No need to sugarcoat it for us. We grew up with the man."

Hardison chuckled quietly.

"He had a temper," he admitted. "But I didn't really know him. I've mostly heard about him. And about you."

Dean tensed, and there was just enough light for him to see Sam narrow his eyes. A lot could be said about them – some good, some bad, and they couldn't know what would have stuck in James Hardison's mind. They had completely cut ties with the hunting community after the war, except with Ellen and Jo Harvelle. They had no idea of how hunters talked about them nowadays.

"What did you hear?" Sam asked, in this controlled tone of his that Dean knew meant trouble.

"Oh, a lot of things. I don't know if everything is true, and frankly I don't care. But I took part in the 'Let's Get Those Fucking Demons Off Our Planet' Plan. I was your contact in Albuquerque, though we never talked directly."

"Oh!" Sam exclaimed. "That's why your name sounded familiar."

Dean could sense that Sam was starting to relax, but Dean wasn't fully there yet. He hadn't known a third of the hunters who took part in that plan, not even their names. Sam and Ellen and Jo had taken care of this. Dean had… Dean had been busy at the time. _Not thinking about that, not now._ That Hardison was a part of it only meant that he hated demons. It didn't mean he liked the Winchesters.

"I'm glad you remember me," Hardison said, smiling. "I've always wanted to meet you two."

"Why?" Sam asked, sounding puzzled and a little wary.

Hardison was looking right at Sam.

"You killed Lucifer. You did what no one else had the power to do."

The words, especially the word "power," made Dean's hackles raise, and he took a step forward so that Sam would be behind him.

"Listen, fucker, I don't know where you're going with this but…"

"Dean!" Sam called sternly.

"What? You think I'm overreacting? Do I have to remind you how much shit we had to deal with because of…"

"Dean, calm down." This was Hardison's voice and it did nothing to calm Dean down. Who the fuck did the asshole think he was? "Dean," Hardison tried again. "I'm not a threat to your brother, I swear. I didn't mean to… I just wanted to say that I'm grateful."

"Grateful?" Dean was dubious. But the man didn't seem to want to jump at Sam's throat just yet, so he loosened his grip on his gun.

"Why wouldn't I be grateful for Lucifer dying, whatever the means used?"

Maybe that man hadn't heard about Dean and Sam setting Lucifer free. Dean sure wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

"Well, now you've met us. We know you're grateful. We're grateful that you're grateful and not wanting to kill my brother for being a freak. Have a good night."

"Don't mind my brother," Sam said. "He was raised by wolves."

"And you were raised by _me_," Dean shot back. "Ungrateful little brat."

Hardison was laughing, the bastard, like any of this was funny.

"You're right, this is an ungodly hour to be discussing such important matters. Good night to you both."

"Hey!" Sam called before the man could go. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. It seems unfair that I would know more about you than you know about me."

"Why do you live here? You're a long way from Albuquerque, and people here don't seem very welcoming."

"Oh, no, they're not, you're right about that. They don't like me."

"Why stay, then?"

"Where would I go? I'm tired of moving all the time. No one is waiting for me. Here is as good as anywhere else. And the mountains are beautiful, aren't they?"

"I guess."

"Anything else you want to ask me?"

"No," Sam said, sounding like he wasn't so sure.

"Then I'll go back home. Good night."

They watched him walk away, not moving before he disappeared in the shadows.

"What do you think?" Dean asked once they were alone.

"I think we should go back to the hotel. I'm tired."

Dean was tired too. He was also wondering what the fuck James Hardison had been doing out in the middle of the night. _They_'d been digging up, salting and burning the body of a man who had obviously been murdered. What was his excuse?

ooo

They went back to their room and Dean didn't sleep for the rest of the night. He could have taken a sleeping pill, but he didn't want to be groggy for half of the following day, so sleep kept eluding him. Gone was the good feeling of the few hours he had managed to sleep earlier in the night, and back was his good friend insomnia. He sat in his bed and watched the shadows of the trees dancing on the wall, listened to Sam moaning and turning restlessly in his sleep. He didn't see any of the creepy human-shaped shadows; not like Sam had seen them, though several times he caught flickers of movement at the corner of his eye, but didn't know if it was those goddamn shadows fucking with him, or if it was the hypervigilance from his PTSD going back in force. He kept his hand on his gun and wondered if Sam had been right to give it back to him.

When morning came, he was irritable and edgy.

"You okay?" Sam asked, raising his head from his cup of coffee. Amy had brought them breakfast in their room, which could be an act of genuine kindness or a way to lull their suspicion. Whatever the reason was, Dean was just happy that he didn't have to deal with people for the moment.

"I'm fine," he answered Sam, the lie rolling easily on his tongue. "Are _you_ okay?"

Sam was squinting in the morning daylight, frowning and pressing his knuckles against his forehead.

"Head hurts."

"Did you…"

"Took something. Waiting for it to kick in."

Dean would offer him a massage like he usually did, but his hands had been shaking a little since he'd gotten out of bed, and he didn't trust himself not to hurt Sam in the process.

"So?"

Dean sipped some of his orange juice and raised an eyebrow.

"So what?"

"Are you going to be honest with me now?"

Dean rolled his eyes. Intellectually, he knew that Sam's policy of 'If I'm honest with you, you should be honest with me' was healthy and shit, especially after their past history with lies, but it was goddamn annoying too.

"I couldn't sleep," he finally confessed.

"Why didn't you take something?"

"I would have been useless for a good part of today." Sam opened his mouth but Dean was quicker. "Situation is worrying enough without one of us down for the count. I know it and you know it."

Sam sighed.

"How are you feeling now?"

"Shitty." He moved his hands from his lap to lay them on the table, showing Sam the slight tremble that was agitating them.

"Do you think we should…" Sam trailed off.

"I have it under control. Sam, I promise."

"I believe you."

"We can't leave now. We have to figure out what's going on here. 'Cause something is going on, that much is sure."

"Actually…" Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. "I think I have an idea."

"Yeah, you already said that last night. Did you do your homework? Care to share with the class, now?"

"I checked a few books while you were in the shower. There wasn't much, but I expected it, because it's not so much a legend, more a… phenomenon."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you ever heard of 'shadow people'?"

"Not really, no."

"People all over the world report seeing black humanoid silhouettes, sometimes with red or yellow eyes. They are said to move very quickly and disjointedly. A lot of explanations have been offered for them – some paranormal and some not. The most interesting theory I've seen is that they would be manifest thought forms – tulpas, you remember? – that would be born from the negative psychic energy of areas where a traumatic event has taken place. Once they're formed, they thrive on fear and negative thoughts and feed from them. Last night I really felt that it was… calling for my fears and darkest memories."

"Yeah." Dean remembered how upset his brother had been. "So traumatic event, huh? Dr. Patterson's death?"

Sam shook his head, and winced.

"No, no, the shadow sightings began before he disappeared. But there was this fire. Remember how the EMF reader reacted? This place is loaded; I'm pretty sure people died in that fire – and that it wasn't an accident."

"That would be traumatic enough, I guess. But I think the most important question is: how do we kill shadows?"

"Yeah, that's the problem. I've found mostly ways to repel them or keep them away: light, blessing the room, positive thinking, things like that. However, I'm not sure it will be enough in our case. The shadows have become strong, they're physically attacking people now. I don't think they'd be willing to go away."

"No, I don't think…"

Someone knocked on the door, interrupting Dean.

"Yes?" Sam called.

"It's Paul."

Dean exchanged a look with Sam.

"Come in."

Paul opened the door slowly, poking his head first, like he wasn't sure he was truly welcome.

"You can come in," Sam said with a nod.

"Hey," Paul said, finally coming in, his hands in his pockets. "How are you?"

"We're fine," Sam answered, and Dean had to laugh inwardly at how untrue it was.

It must have been quite obvious to an outsider too, because Paul looked at them dubiously. He didn't comment on it, though. Instead, he bit his lip.

"Something wrong?" Dean asked, trying to think of what could be bothering the young man. They'd apologized to each other yesterday, hadn't they?

"Are you…" Paul hesitated. "Are you hiding something? I mean, is there something you're not telling me, about this case?"

Dean glanced at Sam for guidance; his brother looked thoughtful. And Paul looked… It took a moment for Dean to identify what he saw on Paul's freckled face, but when he did he wondered how he could have missed it with how expressive his friend was – and right now, Paul looked hurt. Dean was surprised to realize how guilty it made him feel, and it was why he answered Paul instead of waiting for Sam to do it, "We've found a body buried close to where the Museum burned."

Paul's eyes widened.

"A body? Who…"

"That's the million dollar question. Have you ever met Dr. Patterson?"

"Yes, why…. Oh."

"Yes, oh."

"What did the body look like?"

"A man, in his fifties. Not very tall. Not a lot of hair. He wore glasses."

Paul gulped.

"It… It matches Dr. Patterson. Do you think he was… killed?"

"Do you?" Dean said dryly, regretting almost immediately the harsh tone.

"Paul," Sam said. "Have you ever met a man named James Hardison, here in Government Camp?"

"No. But I don't know everyone by their names."

"He's a hunter."

"Oh. Then he's not here – I would've heard about it."

"Maybe he didn't say he was a hunter," Dean suggested.

"Yeah but he said people here didn't like him," Sam said. "He seemed to imply that it was because he was a hunter."

Dean wasn't going to argue with his brother on that point – he didn't like the look of James Hardison anyway.

"Where did you meet this guy?" Paul asked.

"Last night, while we were trying to get a EMF reading where the Museum burned."

"That's… weird."

"Another question," Sam said. "Do you know if people died during the Museum's fire?"

"I have no idea. Do you think it could be ghosts?"

"No," Dean said. "Actually, Sam has a brand new theory. He thinks it's 'shadow people'."

Paul's brow furrowed, and Sam explained his theory.

"It sounds like this story," Paul said when he was finished. "_Le Horla__._"

"Uh, what?" Dean said.

"Oh yeah," Sam said. "It's a French short story by… um."

"Guy de Maupassant," Paul supplied. "About this dude who's, um, kinda haunted by a shadow. It drinks his milk or something."

"Huh."

"Anyway," Sam said, "that's why we need to know how this fire happened and whether anyone died."

"We could ask Amy," Paul said.

"Bad idea," Dean said bluntly.

Paul frowned and looked like he was going to argue, but Dean didn't give him the time.

"We think the fire wasn't accidental. It looks too controlled. So either Amy doesn't know who did it, and her answer won't help us, or she does and…"

"You don't think she had anything to do with it, do you?"

"Not necessarily," Sam cut in soothingly, "But you have to admit that she's behaved a little strangely since we got here. She has to be protecting someone. As to know who was in the museum when it burned…" Sam frowned. "Hey. Paul were there any Croats in Government Camp?"

Paul looked puzzled by the question but Dean thought he saw what his brother was getting at. When Lucifer had died, they'd hoped for a moment that the people infected by the Croatoan virus would be magically cured. Unfortunately, they weren't, though they were less aggressive. The government could have tried to find a cure, but it would have been too expensive given that they had a reconstruction on their hands. The solution generally adopted was to kill all the infected people, which was sometimes done by the authorities, but most of the time the general population took care of it and it ended in blood baths. Sam and Dean had their own problems at the time, but it had been an often-enough horrible occurrence that even they had heard about it.

"You think that they locked up their Croats in the museum and set fire to it," Dean said.

"It makes sense. The Croats were still human beings, such a death would be…"

"A traumatic event."

"Yeah."

"But there's never been any Croats in Government Camp," Paul said. "I don't know if it's the mountain air or something, but the town was used as a refuge by people because there weren't any Croats."

"That's what _they_ told you," Dean pointed out. "Maybe that's what they want you to believe."

Sam was rubbing his forehead but it looked more like it was to help him think than to soothe pain. Hopefully, the meds had kicked in and he was feeling better. Dean couldn't get used to Sam suffering so frequently, it made him want to bring Lucifer back to kill him himself. But right now, he had a case to focus on. A museum, burning. Some Croats – _hate those fucking things, but still, what a shitty way to go_ – and… A thought flashed through his mind.

"Wait, something doesn't add up," he said. "What Anna said. A man came to her and told her to run. To _her__,_ not to Kelly. Why would he say that? It was the night of the fire and he looked burned, so it had something to do with it. But Anna wasn't a Croat."

"Was Anna ever possessed?" Paul asked.

Dean saw Sam flinch at the word. His own stomach churned, nausea creeping, but he wasn't going to let a mere word get to him.

"I don't know," he said, proud at how even his voice was. "Why?"

"Wait, you've never heard of the purge? People who were possessed were killed all over the country by the population, as 'retaliation'." Paul used his fingers to draw quote marks in the air. "The police put an end to it."

Sam and Dean looked at each other. Sam shrugged.

"We were very busy after the war. But that's an idea – maybe they didn't burn their Croats. Maybe they burned their possessed people."

Dean shivered. Thought about burning flesh and the rotten stench of sulfur. The never-ending screams. Trapped. Helpless. They never had a chance. Their lives had been hell and their deaths were torture.

_Don't say that like it's a bad thing, Dean-o. Their screaming is the most delicious thing there is, don't you agree?_

Dean jumped.

"Dean?"

He looked up and saw Sam and Paul watching him anxiously.

"So," he said, his voice hoarse – _like he'd screamed__._ He cleared his throat. "Is that our working theory?"

"We should call Anna," Paul said, while Sam was still looking at Dean.

"We'll do that," Dean said, trying to ignore his brother's eyes on him. "Is there a phone here?"

ooo

There was indeed a phone, as Mrs. Gibson confirmed. Sam went to call Anna, while Dean kept an eye on Amy and her aunt so they wouldn't overhear the phone conversation. Both women were wiping the tables in the restaurant room. Dean watched the hypnotic movement of the dust cloth, soothing and innocuous, as he pondered their new theory. He wondered who knew about that fire, if Mrs. Gibson did, if Amy did. Who was responsible for it?

Amy's cleaning brought her near Dean.

"Hey, Amy," he called.

"Yes?" she said, continuing her work, bent over the table.

"Do you know a man called James Hardison?"

Amy's arm stilled – her hair was in her face and Dean couldn't see her expression.

"Why do you want to know?"

"He's a friend of our father," Dean lied smoothly. "I thought maybe he'd been in the area."

"Never heard of him."

She finished quickly with her table and hurried to another, farther from Dean. Sam came back at that moment; he leaned over Dean's shoulder and spoke to his ear in a low voice, "We were right – Anna's been possessed, and…"

"Yeah – well, I think we have something else to worry about. I asked Amy about James Hardison and her reaction was…"

"Yes, James Hardison," Sam interrupted him. "The name of the hunter who exorcised Anna – it was James Hardison."


	5. Chapter 5

_For author's note and disclaimer, see chapter one._

**Chapter 5**

It was 11 am and it was snowing hard. Sam, Dean and Paul were gathered in Sam and Dean's room. It was supposed to be some kind of war council, but right now the room was silent and they were all watching gloomily through the window, looking at the sheet of snow that made everything white and hazy. Dean was sitting on his bed, holding himself stiffly, his jaw clenched so hard that Sam hurt for him. Paul looked a little uneasy and disconcerted, unused to seeing Dean that bad, but Sam knew that his brother was having trouble dealing with the necessary confinement. He'd never liked feeling cooped up, and that had been much worse since the war and… everything.

Sam rubbed his forehead, using the palm of his hand. His head didn't really hurt anymore, just the dull ache he was used to, but the gesture had become comforting and the pressure felt good.

"So," he said, more to break the silence than because he really had something useful to share. "We have to find a way to fight those shadow people. We know that light scare them off, but it doesn't keep them from coming back." He shuddered when he remembered his own encounter with one of the shadow people. He was now pretty sure that he'd seen it the night before, but had blamed it on a half-forgotten dream. He turned to Paul. "In the story you told us about…"

"_Le Horla_?"

"Yeah. Do you remember how it ends? Does the character get rid of the shadow?"

From his corner of the room, Dean seemed to perk up at Sam's words, obviously picking up on his brother's line of reasoning and finding some comfort in shop talk.

"You think this story could be true? Like, this French dude, what's-his-name, really saw these shadows and fought them?"

"Could be. We've acted on more obscure lore."

"Maupassant ended up crazy," Paul said. "Paranoid. Maybe he wasn't really paranoid – maybe it was the shadows." His face screwed up in concentration. "In the end… I think the character sets his house on fire."

"Fire?" Dean sounded hopeful. "It could work. Remember the tulpa in Texas? We got rid of it by burning the house. You said those shadows were some kind of tulpa."

Sam rested his chin on his closed fist, thinking.

"I don't know. It worked with the tulpa in Texas because it was tied to the house. The shadows here don't seem tied to anything. Colleen and I have seen them in the inn, but I'm pretty sure the Torrances have seen them too, as well as other people in the town. And we can't burn down the whole town."

"Why not?" Dean huffed, earning himself an alarmed glance from Paul. Sam smiled at the young man reassuringly – Dean didn't mean it. Not really.

"Even if we could," Paul said, "setting the house on fire doesn't really work for the character in _Le Horla__. _I don't remember the ending very well but I think he realizes in the end that he isn't really free from whatever was haunting him."

"Not really encouraging, huh?" Dean said. "But then, maybe this guy was just nuts. Not all crazy people are really misunderstood victims of the supernatural."

Paul stood up from his chair near the window.

"I should go and see Amy. She's gonna wonder what I'm doing locked up with you."

"You could tell her that we're doing our job," Dean said. "The reason why she asked us to come in this fuckhole."

Paul flashed him a wry smile.

"But I'm not supposed to do the job with you, remember?"

"Yeah, true." Dean folded his arms, raised his chin. "Go find your girlfriend, then. But don't tell her we've found Dr. Patterson's body, okay?"

Paul looked like he wasn't happy with the order, but nodded grudgingly.

"See you at lunch, guys."

He closed the door maybe a little too vigorously when he went away, and the resulting boom noise made Dean start.

"Fuck," he swore, obviously annoyed with his jumpiness. "I'm okay," he said to the concerned look Sam threw at him.

"Yeah, you look okay. Is there something you haven't told me? You haven't had any…"

"No," Dean snapped. "Maybe," he amended after a few seconds. "I kinda had… a flash of Haborym's voice."

Sam forced himself to remain calm, even though a voice in his head was screaming _I thought we were done with that; why aren't we done with that?_ It was stupid, of course. Just because Dean had been doing better these past months, it didn't mean that he was healed. There was enough crap in his head to last him a lifetime – as was probably going to be the case. He wondered if maybe he should be grateful that it wasn't Alastair Dean had flashed on, but honestly, he didn't know who was worse.

"What triggered it?" he asked evenly, impressed by his control over his own voice.

"When we talked about… the possessed people burning in the Museum's fire. He…" Dean forced a joyless smile. "He liked fire. And burning people. It's funny because it didn't do anything to me to burn Patterson's body… He was already dead, though. But the thought of all those people… Maybe it was because they used to be possessed. Some identification thing, I don't know." He pressed his lips together, looking unhappy with himself.

"Okay," Sam said uselessly. It wasn't okay, not okay at all and Sam was trying to fight off worry and anger. They could do this, he told himself, Dean had been worse, God, so much worse. But he'd been better too, before they came to Government Camp. Sam remembered the glint of interest in his brother's eyes when Paul had explained the case, how it had convinced him that this hunt was a good idea, that Dean wanted it, needed it to reconnect with himself. He'd been so stupid, so irresponsible. What a bang-up job he was doing at watching out for his brother. He'd screwed up again, could never get it right.

"Sam, hey, Sam." Dean's voice pulled Sam out of his dark thoughts. "Stop beating yourself up about it, dude. It was just a tiny harmless flashback. Nothing to write home about. You can't do anything about it. I can't do anything about it. It's just the way it is. And I'm fine. Not raving and drooling just yet."

Dean smirked, just a little, just enough to make Sam feel better. Sam hated himself for needing it. He shouldn't be comforted by his brother, he should be the one comforting him. But Dean was right, no need to endlessly mope over this. They had a job to do.

ooo

They did have a job to do, but the weather conditions didn't help them do it. The snow made it unwise to get out, and the shadows had never appeared in daylight. They talked themselves hoarse about what they could do to banish the shadows, if not kill them, but nothing new came up and the discussion just went round in circles.

"Maybe the only thing we can do is bless each room in each house and pray for the better," Sam finally said.

"Or just leave those people to clean up their mess. They made their own bed, and they made it clear they didn't want our help."

"But we don't know who was involved. Those things attacked me, maybe they attacked other people who had nothing to with it. I don't think they want justice – they want to feed. Also, we're not sure about what happened with this fire. It's just a theory."

Sam was a little worried at how much Dean seemed to make this personal. He seemed to be doing a little better – he was hardly shaking anymore and had stopped jumping at every sound. If he had another flashback, he didn't tell, but Sam caught him muttering under his breath a few times – probably trying to remember song lyrics, his favorite grounding technique. But at the end of the day, he looked like he was back to himself and that was a relief. When Sam's stomach rumbled, he looked at his watch and saw that dinner was due.

"I'm hungry. You?"

"I could eat."

Sam eyed his brother attentively.

"Want to eat in the dining hall with the others or do you prefer to have dinner here?"

Dean didn't answer right away.

"Here?" he said after a moment, tentatively like he was ashamed of himself. "I mean, if you don't mind."

"Of course not, you moron."

Dean flipped him off and Sam managed to grin appropriately.

"I'll be right back."

The inn looked deserted, but then it always did. Sam tried to imagine it lively, with people chattering in the hallways, children running around. He didn't have any warm feelings for this town's inhabitants, but it had to be hard for them to see their town so dead, even though they hadn't know the same destruction as in some other parts of the country.

He was deep in thoughts, melancholic, disheartened thoughts, but was brought back to reality by the sound of people shouting. Curious and vaguely alarmed, he made his way silently the dining hall, where the voices came from, his hand at his back in case he needed his gun.

"…safe, don't you get it? We have to get out of here!"

It was Ethan Torrance's voice, high-pitched with panic.

"Ethan, you're hysterical," Stacey Gibson cut him coldly. "Calm down, please."

"Calm down? I have to _calm down?_ Why am I the only one here who seems to realize what's going on?"

Sam came closer, still not coming in, all unhappy feelings forgotten and back in hunting mode.

"You're overreacting."

"Oh, my God, Stacey, you're in denial! Don't tell me you haven't seen them too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah, right. I don't believe you. And now this man's here and you know what it means, you_ know__…_"

"We know nothing," Mrs. Gibson snapped. "_Nothing__. _This is all speculation and I'm _sick_ and _tired_ of…"

"Well I'm sick and tired of being scared out of my fucking mind all…"

"That's _enough__._"

Sam held his breath. This voice he didn't know. It was quavering with age but contained unmistakable authority, and Sam just wanted to know what it had to say.

"Come in."

Sam started. Who was it talking to? Could it be…

"You, behind the door. Come in."

Sam came in. In the middle of the room stood Stacey Gibson, Ethan Torrance with his wife fearfully hidden behind him, and Colleen's father. They were all gathered around a table, behind which sat an old woman with her hair an immaculate white and her wrinkled skin parched and translucent.

"You're Mrs. Griffith," Sam said. He kept his hand behind his back, gripping his gun and not bothering to hide the gesture. He heard Torrance frantically whisper '_what is he doing? Does he have a gun?__' _and be unkindly shushed by Stacey Gibson.

"You're Sam Winchester," the old woman said. "Stacey did say you were tall."

"That seems to be the general consensus." Sam paused. "How did you know I was there?"

Mrs. Griffith's thin lips formed a smile.

"I didn't," she said. "But Ethan and Stacey were starting to yell so loud I suspected that you or your brother, or your friend, the French young man, were bound to come down to see what was going on."

"You interrupted them before they could say anything too compromising."

She tipped her head, assessing him. Her eyes were blue and piercing through Sam like she wanted to pull his soul out of his body for examination.

"Why are you here, Mr. Winchester?"

"To do my job, Mrs. Griffith. Nothing more, and nothing less. Do you deny that there's a job to be done in Government Camp?"

"You're a hunter, if I'm not mistaken."

"I am."

"Aren't hunters supposed to fight unnatural creatures? Like demons." Her lips curled in disgust. "Why are you listening at the door with a gun in your back? We're all humans, here. We have nothing to do with the filthy things you hunt."

"Experience has taught me that things are rarely that separated, Mrs. Griffith. My brother and I are leading an investigation, and since the moment we arrived here, none of you have been forthcoming with us. You know what else experience has taught me? Everyone has things to hide. But the people who keep hiding them to you even when their lives are in danger, when you're only trying to help them? Those people's secrets are really _nasty._"

Sam heard Mrs. Griffith's sharp intake of breath at the words, saw her cool melt down to reveal seething anger and hatred.

"You, you," she stammered, shaking with rage. "You arrogant little prick, you don't know, you have no _idea__…_"

A scream, an ear-splitting, heart-wrenching cry suddenly rang out. She stopped talking, taken aback, and Sam's dark satisfaction at having provoked a reaction vanished when he recognized his brother's voice.

"Dean!" he boomed, and ran out of the dining hall.

His gun was in his hand, not that he was sure that it was needed or that it'd be of any use. What the hell was going one? Was it another flashback, or the shadows, or an attack – James Hardison? Sam's mind was spinning with horrible possibilities and fear was constricting his heart, because Dean was still screaming without a break, and sobbing and begging loudly and God, Sam had never wanted to hear his brother sound like that ever again.

He barged in the room, not sparing a single thought to the danger to himself. It was dark, light turned off for some reason but the moon outside provided enough light for Sam to see the shadows on the wall. There were maybe five or six of them, stretched on the wall and so black it was blinding, and Sam could hear his brother whimper but didn't waste any time trying to find where the noise came from. His hand felt around until he found the switch.

The light made the shadows vanish, but they were slower than last time, lingering for a fleeting moment like they were reluctant to leave. Or promising they'd be back. Sam shivered, then looked around and found Dean huddled in a corner, shaking violently, almost seizure like, and moaning, loud moans of unadulterated pain. His face was glistening with tears. The light and the shadows' disappearance didn't make him stop, and Sam knew that whatever the shadows had done to him, Dean was now caught in a flashback.

Sam approached him and kneeled besides him.

"Dean? Do you hear me? It's Sam. You're safe, now."

No answer – it meant that Dean had completely lost touch with reality and that was bad. Dean hadn't had that kind of flashback in so long, Sam had hoped they would never had to deal with them again.

"What's going on?"

"What happened to him?"

"It was those fucking shadows again? When I tell you that…"

"Shut up!"

They were all gathered at the room's entrance, except Mrs. Griffith who had probably not been able to move as fast as the others. They didn't dare to come in, but were poking their heads in, trying to take a peek at Dean, curious and scared, and Sam felt a violent urge for murder.

"Get the fuck out of here!" he ordered, trying not to yell in case Dean could hear him.

"But…"

Sam didn't know which of them had spoken, and didn't care.

"_Out_!"

They retreated back to the hallway and Sam turned again to Dean, who was still shaking so hard it had to hurt him. His eyes were opened but unfocused, unseeing, and Sam bit his lip. He put a hand on his brother's shoulder, careful not to grip him in any way that would feel like aggression. Dean's muscles were trembling under Sam's fingers, and his thumb started almost unconsciously to rub in soothing circles.

"Dean. Listen to me. Follow my voice, look up. Dude, you can do it."

"Sam?"

Sam turned, irritated at being interrupted again, but it was Paul calling, Amy and Colleen behind him, both girls looking at Dean above Paul's shoulder with wide eyes.

"What's going on? Is Dean okay?"

It was such a stupid question that Sam felt hysterical laughter bubble in his throat.

"He's having a flashback," he said, as calmly as he could.

"Oh. Can… Can I do something?"

Sam's first instinct was to say no. He had always taken care of this alone and felt hostile to the idea of anyone else helping – it was _their_ problem, their private pain and shame. But he looked at Paul's earnest expression, at the genuine worry in the furrows of his brow, and he changed his mind.

"Find something that smells strong – like peppermint, or some kind of spice. And ice – if you don't find ice, fill a bottle with water as cold as you can."

Paul looked puzzled by the requests, but didn't question them and hurried away, Amy and Colleen on his heels. Sam kept talking to Dean relentlessly, keeping his tone even and his voice calming, waiting for his brother to take notice of him. He finally resorted to singing, even more off-key than usual, butchering Dean's favorite songs in the most sacrilegious way and mixing up words in hope to catch Dean's attention back to present time.

Paul and Amy came back without Colleen but with a plastic bottle filled with cold water and a box of strong smelling peppermints. Dean's hands were curled into fists but Sam managed to pry one of them open and put the water bottle in it, then placed the peppermints under Dean's nose, still talking to him.

"Come on, man. Dean, look around you. Tell me what you see. Come on, you know the drill. Please, Dean, I know you're in there somewhere."

Sam was so focused on his brother he didn't even know whether Paul and Amy were still there or had left the room. He started singing again, and kept singing for so long he lost track of time. He was almost through with Metallica's _Master of Puppets_, his voice a little hoarse and the water in the bottle probably lukewarm by now, when Dean began to show awareness again and to answer to him.

Sam coaxed him patiently into naming objects around him – the bed, the table and chairs, the curtains' color – identifying the peppermint smell, focusing on the feeling of the bottle in hand, the carpet on the floor, the jeans against the skin of his thighs. After a while, Dean struggled to get up and Sam moved aside to let him. He had a quick look around the room, saw that Paul and Amy were gone and felt a surge of gratitude for that.

"How're you feeling?" he asked, watching Dean limp to his bed and sit on it with a groan.

"Like I've been chewed and spat out by a black dog."

He sounded rough. He hid his face in his hands, still shaking a little, and stayed like that for a minute.

"What time is it?" he finally asked, voice muffled.

Sam glanced at his watch.

"Half past eight."

"And we're… Wednesday." His hands went back to his lap. "Wait, we're still Wednesday, right?"

"Yes." Knowing how disoriented Dean often felt after a flashback like that, Sam added, "We're in Government Camp. We've been here for two days."

"Yes. Okay."

"Is it over?"

"Flashback? Yeah."

"You remember what happened? When I came in, those goddamn shadows were there. There were at least five of them. Did they do something to you?"

"I don't know." He frowned. "Something isn't right."

"What?"

"The flashback… it wasn't all flashback."

Sam lifted a questioning eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it wasn't all mine. Some of the things I've seen, I've never… It didn't add up. It wasn't any of my memories from Hell, and I don't think it was any of the stuff Haborym threw at me when he fought for our…" He clicked his tongue, looking annoyed, "_my_ body's control."

Sam saw Dean rub absentmindedly at a spot under his collarbone, where Sam knew was the binding burn they'd used to keep Haborym inside of Dean – a variation of the burn Meg had used on Sam, only this one allowed Dean to keep some control. Like it had made it even remotely better than ordinary possession. Jesus, just thinking about the months that fucking demon spent riding his brother…

"What were those memories about?" he asked, trying to shake himself from unwanted thoughts.

"People trapped in a room, all huddled against each other. I didn't know any of them. There was smoke and fire. They all burned, Sammy. They burned alive."

Sam's mouth went dry.

"Jesus. Do you think… God."

"The people in the museum, yeah. Those fucking shadows, I don't know how they did it but I think they made me _see _what happened."

"And that triggered the flashback."

"I guess. Kind of fuzzy on the details. Did, um… Did anyone else see me like that?"

Sam thought about lying, but realized that one comment from anyone and that lie would be short-lived.

"Pretty much everyone," he said. His brother's face fell. "Sorry, I got them out of the room as quickly as I could, but my focus was on you. But I've heard all of them – Amy's aunt, Ullman, the Torrances, and Mrs. Griffith, you know, that old lady? – and they're afraid. I'm pretty sure they've all seen the shadows, and they fear James Hardison, too. I don't know how he fits in all that but…"

The light went off.

ooo

A cloud had to be hiding the moon because Sam could barely see his own hands. He fumbled around until he found his bag, got his flashlight out and switch it on.

"Dean?"

"Right here."

Dean had gotten up. Sam saw his brother's gun on his nightstand and grabbed it, held it out to him.

"Take this. I have a bad feeling."

Dean raised his hands so they caught the flashlight beam. They were still trembling.

"Sure you wanna give me a gun, bro?" he said.

Sam kept his arm held out until Dean took the gun reluctantly.

"Just don't point it in my direction," Sam said.

A gunshot banged away. There were panicked cries and Sam's jaws clenched.

"I think it's show time," he said.

They made their way silently in the dark to the dining hall, where the noises had come from. Coming closer, Sam could hear a voice – James Hardison's voice, "… back of the room. Everyone stay calm."

"What do we do?" Dean whispered.

"No more hiding," Sam said, and he pushed open the door.

It was as dark in the restaurant room as in the rest of the building, but Sam could make out several figures gathered in the back of the room. In front of them, a man was standing. His back was to Sam and Dean when they entered the room, but he turned around quickly.

"Sam, Dean," Hardison said. "You should have stayed in your room."

He had something in his hand – a gun. Sam instinctively pointed his own weapon at him and knew without looking that Dean was doing the same.

"I don't know what you're trying to do here," Sam said. "But put that gun down and let those people go. We have to turn the lights on or…"

"I know."

"You do?"

Somehow, Sam was only half-surprised.

"It was you," he said. "I assumed that… they were born of the negative energy from the museum's fire, but if they're thought forms, they can be created too. Why would you do something like that?"

"You're only half-right," Hardison said. "I'm the cause of that, I admit it, but they're not thought forms."

"Then what are they?"

"I don't know. I called them, but I don't know what they _are__._ I wanted revenge, and they came."

"You crazy bastard," Dean said. "You're a hunter, you know better than doing half-cocked black magic."

"Revenge for what?" Sam asked.

James Hardison took a deep breath.

"Have you ever heard about 'Oradour-sur-Glane'?"

"I have," a voice piped in from behind him. It was Paul, and Sam swore inwardly. He'd hoped the young man was somewhere else in the hotel.

Hardison glanced quickly above his shoulder.

"Oh," he said. "You're French, aren't you?"

"Yes. Oradour-sur-Glane is a village in France. At the end of the Second World War, the Nazis massacred the villagers."

"Exactly. It was to deter the population from supporting the Resistance. They shot all the men, burned their bodies even though some weren't dead yet, and they locked up the women and children in the church. They wanted to asphyxiate them, but it went wrong and they ended up burning the church. Horrible story isn't it? I used to be a history teacher, you see."

"Why are you telling us this?" Sam said, though he had an idea about where this story was going.

"The Nazis were more human than _those_ people. You know the truth about the Museum's fire, don't you? They locked up some innocent people in there and they _set fire to the building__._"

"Innocent?" Mrs. Griffith spat from a shadowed corner of the room. "They weren't so innocent when they killed my daughter, when they killed Jeremy Ullman's pregnant wife! They came one day and they wreaked havoc in the town, and then suddenly they acted all confused and panicked like nothing at all had happened!"

Her voice was shrill, trembling with anger and hatred, but it wasn't why Sam felt Mrs. Griffith's words hit him like a physical blow. When the war with the demons had become an open war, they'd tried to inform people but a lot of small towns were just too isolated. After the war, the authorities had taken over through TV and radio and newspapers. Sometimes too late, apparently. To Sam, demons and possession had become something so trivial that it was a shock to discover what normal people's perspective looked like.

"It wasn't them who killed your people, you ignorant fool!" Hardison yelled. "It was the demons! They were possessed! The demons disappeared when we performed the common exorcism!"

"I don't know what this common exorcism you're talking about is," Mrs. Griffith said coldly. "I only know what I saw. The demons. We punished them. We had a right to do so. We had to defend ourselves, and there were no hunters to help us."

"The common exorcism – we spent months performing a ritual binding the demons together. The exorcism of a few key members exorcised them all. Ask the Winchesters – it was their idea!"

"What he says is true," Sam said. "The people you killed were exorcised. There were no more demons." He turned to Hardison and said, "I understand now why you told Anna to run."

"Anna?"

"A young Asian woman. She was here with her girlfriend the night of the fire."

"Oh, I remember. I exorcised her a few years ago. When I saw her, I worried that someone would find out that she'd been possessed. That they would burn her, like they burned…" His breath caught. "Like they burned my daughter."

"Your daughter?" Sam said. _Oh God. _It was starting to make horrible sense.

"Lucy. She was twenty-three. She got possessed soon after Lucifer got out of Hell. That's why I wanted to be part of your plan, so I could free her. I tracked her and found her here, in Government Camp. I barely dared hope to find her alive but she was. They'd locked all the possessed people in the museum while they decided what to do with them – and then they decided just to set the museum on fire."

Sam hated James Hardison for creating that situation, for bringing into the world those shadows that had hurt his brother. But revenge – revenge he could understand, though he knew now that it wasn't an excuse for anything.

"I…" he said, and stopped himself when he caught a movement at the edge of his field of vision.

"_Sam!_" Dean hissed.

"Yes, I saw it too."

Dean's breathing was starting to become erratic. There was more and more movement on the walls: the shadows were swarming with life.

"Hardison," Sam said. "They're coming. Let us turn on the lights and we'll see what to do about what happened. They won't get away with it, I promise."

Hardison shook his head.

"No. Let's get this over with. We can't stop them, not forever. Let them take their prey."

"Are you out of your mind or just plain stupid?" Dean said. "These things don't want justice, they want to feed. They want the fear and the hatred and the grief. The more they get, the stronger they are and _they. won't. stop_."

"They attacked my brother," Sam said. "They don't discriminate."

"Then there's nothing we can do," Hardison said. "I'm sorry, boys. I'm really sorry you got dragged into this."

The shadows had taken shape, now. They were long thin silhouettes, some with hats, some without, some with red eyes, but all projecting so much darkness and malice that Sam felt he could choke on it. They were noiseless but their presence was deafening.

"_Bordel de merde__,_" Sam heard Paul say – he didn't understood the words but he knew swearing when he heard it.

"Hardison!" Sam said urgently.

He didn't like the situation one bit, felt annoyingly… powerless. Except he wasn't – on the contrary, he was extremely powerful. He could almost feel his skin prickle, like there was electricity running on it. But no, he couldn't do that, Dean wouldn't like it. There had to be another way. He tried to remember where the switch was in this room. Could he reach it quickly enough? There was a gunshot and Sam felt a bullet graze his cheek. It burned, and he winced.

"Fuck!"

"Hardison!" Dean shouted.

"Shoot me and I shoot your brother," Hardison said. "You want to find out which one of us would be the luckiest in the dark?"

"You bastard!"

"I don't want to hurt either of you, Dean. But the shadows… They have to go their way. I get it now. I know I made a mistake, but now it's out of our control."

There was a whimper from one of the people gathered at the back of the room. Sam felt like whimpering too – the shadows were thickening and moving, their long arms stretching out on the walls, reaching out. Images were flashing in Sam's mind and he couldn't stop them, wondered remotely if it was like that for Dean when he had flashbacks. _Fire__ –_ Jess, burning, his father – _blood_ – Dean, being torn up by the hellhounds, Ruby – _power_ – the smell of sulfur was so strong – _Azazel__ – _hatred, hatred – _Lilith's white eyes__ –_ revenge –

"Sam!"

It was Dean's distressed call. Dean – his brother needed him, but Sam couldn't, he never could…

_Get a fucking grip, Sam._

And he did. It felt like his mind, or part of his mind was detaching itself from the rest and things felt different, clearer. He knew that feeling, it was the one he had when he used his powers, that untapped part of him he hadn't touched since he'd killed Lucifer. Control, power surging inside of him. A voice in his mind told him to stop but it was so weak, and he didn't want to listen to it. He could sense the shadows – not the haze of negative feelings they threw at people, but _them_, he was aware of their hunger and want. He let go of his gun – didn't need it anyway – heard it hit the ground with a thump. He held out his arm, palm open. He closed his hand, slowly, felt them trying to squirm away from his grasp. He heard them scream, a screeching noise that got louder and louder, painful – though Sam wasn't really sure it was an actual noise.

Then there was silence, so sudden that it felt like turning deaf. There was something warm on Sam's upper lip – he tasted it; it was blood. The pain hit him like a train.

"Aaaahhh!"

He fell to his knees, thought he heard his brother call his name but it sounded far away. When darkness came, Sam welcomed it.


	6. Epilogue

_For author's note and disclaimer, see chapter one._

**Epilogue**

Sam was lying on something soft – a bed, it was a bed. He couldn't move because someone or something was hammering his head and he wished it would stop so he could sleep. He fell into the dark again and it was a relief.

Time stretched; it was governed by the rhythm of the pain pulsations, regular like a heartbeat except that it was in his head and it hurt. It looked that it was dark, mostly, but Sam still didn't dare open his eyes because the occasional flickers of light felt like something was trying to pierce through his skull to reach his brain. He feared that his head would fall off from it but couldn't make his hands move to hold it.

There was a voice, sometimes. He was pretty sure it was his brother's because it was low and soothing, but he couldn't make out the words because it was too hard to focus enough to go through the haze of pain. He sometimes tried to answer, tell Dean he could hear him and that he was okay, but words didn't come out and he could only moan.

There was something warm pressed against his cheek at one point, then something hard and cold against his lips.

"C'mon, Sammy."

He was happy to realize that he could hear words that made sense, and somehow understood that the cold thing was a glass that he needed to open his mouth to drink. The cool liquid felt good, and Sam moaned again, in pleasure this time. Then he tried to roll over on his side and the movement sent a new wave of pain inside his skull. He cried out.

"Hey, Sam, don't move, dude."

He felt his brother's hands pressing down on his shoulders, keeping him from moving.

"_Hurts__._"

"I know. Just relax."

He couldn't, he wanted to scream. Couldn't relax because it hurt so goddamn much and each time it seemed to feel better the pain came back with a vengeance, like relentless waves crashing against the shore. But he stopped moving, focused on the feeling of Dean's hands, two warm points anchoring his body. After a while – _hours, months, years_ – he felt the pain subside, and sleep overcame him.

When he opened his eyes, the room was dark, but Sam was surprised to see that he was still in the Huckleberry Inn room. He closed his eyes again for a second to get a feel for the pain in his head. It ached, but didn't hurt. He cautiously tried to move, pushing himself up with his hands, careful not to jolt his head too much in the process.

"Dean?" he called once he was sitting in the bed.

"Yes?"

In seconds, his brother was at his side.

"How do you feel?"

"Okay," Sam said. "I think. Doesn't hurt as much."

"Good. Good."

"What happened?" Sam asked after a silence.

"Oh, uh, well… You did something to those shadows, chased them or destroyed them…"

"Destroyed," Sam said. He was sure of it.

"Okay, if you say so." There was no identifiable emotion in Dean's voice. "So you did your thing, and you keeled over. I disarmed Hardison and went to you, carried you to the room."

"Carried me?"

"Yeah. And let me tell you, I won't do that again anytime soon. Think I fucked up my back a little with your heavy ass. Anyway, I stayed with you the whole time."

"How long?"

"Ten hours. Paul came a couple of times. Said Hardison ran away. With all the snow outside, I don't know how far he intends to go, but well. Paul called the police, both for Hardison, and the others."

"They haven't tried to run away?"

"They're mostly arguing, Paul said. About whose fault this whole mess is and what they should do now. And with the snow… Last I heard, they were still all here. But by the time the roads are cleared enough for the police to come, I don't know."

"Yeah. Well, it's not our job to run after them."

"No, it's not."

There was another silence that stretched for a while, broken only by the soft sound of their breathing.

"Are you going to give me a hard time for using my… abilities?" Sam finally said.

"You saved us." Sam made out the movement of Dean shrugging. "Can't argue with the result. At least you weren't in a coma like after you killed Lucifer. I count it as a win."

He didn't add anything. He probably wasn't going to, like he hadn't after Sam had used his powers on Lucifer. Sam didn't know if it was resignation, acceptance, or that he was just happy Sam was alive and thought he couldn't ask for more.

"How are you?" Sam asked. "I mean, did you have any more flashbacks?"

He felt Dean hesitate before answering.

"Nothing I couldn't handle. Don't worry."

It made Sam worry all the more, of course. Feel guilty that he hadn't been there to help Dean go through it. He was a failure of a brother and this was always a hard fact to face. He couldn't save Dean from going to Hell, couldn't get him out of Hell – and then the thing with Ruby, God, what a mess he'd made. And during the war, he couldn't protect his brother from being possessed by Haborym.

Of course, it had been Dean's idea. Find a higher demon, get possessed but in a way that still allowed him some control, and he had gone undercover among the demons. It was how they'd found the knowledge for the demon binding ritual and the common exorcism, how they'd known most of the demons and Lucifer's moves. It was how they'd won. But it had messed up his brother so much. After the war, Sam had been in too bad of a shape from his fight with Lucifer to realize that something was really wrong with Dean – until that day when he'd come back to their motel room to find him unconscious. He hadn't been able to wake him and had to call 911. Suicide attempt, the doctors had said and Sam's world had crashed around him.

"Sammy? You in there?"

"What?"

"You're thinking again, bro. I told you it was bad for you."

"You mean it's bad for _you__._"

"Ha fucking ha. You're a riot. Seriously, what's on your mind?"

"You mean, apart from the total mess this job was?"

"Well, we – I mean _you_ – killed the bad guys, we found out about the horrible crime that had been committed here and now they'll have the police on their asses… For our first job in years, I don't think it was so bad."

"We should never have come here. The shadows, they…"

"Messed me up? Sam, I'm already plenty messed up."

"Don't say that, don't…"

"Sam." Dean sighed. "Should we talk about it? Caroline keeps telling me we should talk about it."

"About what?"

"About… you know." Sam knew, but he wanted to hear Dean say it. "Argh, you're a pain in the ass. About when I tried to kill myself. There, happy?"

"Ecstatic."

The truth was, Sam felt nauseous and it had little to do with his lingering headache. He let Dean continue, though, out of some masochistic need to know what his brother had to say about this.

"Is there something you want to tell me about that?" Dean said.

"I don't really…"

"Anything at all. One time offer, man."

Sam really didn't want to talk about it, so he was surprised to hear himself say, "After… after that day, you told me that you hadn't really tried to kill yourself, that you were really tired and confused and you had just taken too many meds."

"Sam…"

"For a while I believed you, you know? Before I realized that I was supposed to be gone for hours and that you couldn't have known I would get a headache and come back earlier… No one would have found you in time. You would have died. But I believed you because I thought – with all the weapons we have, why would he go for the meds?"

"That your question?" Dean sounded incredulous. "You wanna know why I didn't blow my brains out?"

"Yeah."

"I… didn't want you to find me like that. Didn't want you to, you know, scrub my brain from the carpet."

Laughter escaped Sam, hitched and sounding more like sobs.

"That… That's so thoughtful of you, Dean." He could hear himself and he sounded mean, but he couldn't stop. "That's exactly what I thought when I found you – thank God he didn't made a mess!"

"Sam… You sure that's what you really want to ask me?"

"No."

He felt it grow inside of him, that familiar anger, and it scared him because he didn't know how to control it. He had never let himself acknowledge it because come on, what kind of asshole would be mad at a brother who suffered so much he wanted to die? But he'd been mad, because that was his default reaction to everything – he _was_ mad.

"How… how, how could you?" Maybe it was the darkness, the fact that he couldn't see Dean's face very well, but the words were just pouring out of him. "How could you do that? It was okay, for the first time in… There was no impending doom or anything and you… Why? Why wasn't I enough?"

"Oh, Sam, Sammy…" Sam heard Dean breathe deeply in and exhale slowly. "Don't you get it? You _were_ enough, you _are__._ I mean, I'm still here, right?"

"But I didn't keep you from…"

"Yeah, well. I can't really explained to you how it was for me at the time, not that you're too dumb to get it but I just… I don't know how – I don't have the words. You know me, I'm not good with words. Everything was just so fucked up and I didn't understand what was happening to me. Now I have words I can use, PTSD and flashbacks and dissociation, but at the time, I just thought I was going crazy. I saw things, I heard things, and I was afraid all the time and sometimes it felt like it wasn't really me in my body and… And it didn't make sense because I'd been forty years in Hell and I'd come back more or less fine – well, there were the nightmares and they sucked but I thought I had gotten over it, you know? And then there was the day I hit you."

"What?"

Sam remembered that day – Dean was so enraged and it had frightened Sam because he didn't understand the reason behind it. He had hit Sam more violently than he'd ever done before, which had caused a monster headache that made Sam wince just remembering. Still, it hadn't been that big a deal for Sam, especially compared to what had happened after.

"Come on, Dean, it wasn't that bad," he said.

"That wasn't what I thought," Dean said. "I thought I was crazy and that I was a danger to you. I couldn't bear that thought. I just couldn't."

"Is that why…"

"Not just that but… It's not like I sat at my desk and made a list with the pros and cons of living. I was overwhelmed. Honestly, I still am, sometimes. But, Sam – each day I keep living is because of you."

Sam felt something unlock in his chest, like something was breaking or maybe falling back into place and before he had the time to understand what was going on, he found himself bursting into tears.

"What the… Sam!" He felt his brother's hand on his shoulder and it made him sob harder. He tried to get it under control because it was ridiculous and he hadn't cried in ages, not even when Dean had attempted suicide and he just didn't know what the hell was wrong with him.

"Sam, come on, don't… Shit, don't cry. Sammy, whatever I said that made you cry, I'm sorry, okay? I take it back."

"No, no, it's not…" Sam babbled. He took a long hitching breath. Fuck, his head was hurting again. "Sorry. I don't know what the fuck got in me. I guess, I'm just… I'm tired."

"Yeah, I bet you are. That was some headache."

"Yeah." Sam cleared his throat, sniffed. Wiped his tears away with the palm of his hand.

"For the record, don't ever do that again, okay?" Dean said. "I mean, use your powers. I don't fancy watching your brain leak through your ears."

"Right. I'll keep that in mind."

He smiled though Dean couldn't see him in the dark. He heard his brother chuckle softly.

"Dude, we're both so fucked up."

"Yes, we are."

"But I still want to hunt, you know."

"Dean, maybe that's not…"

"No, I can do this, I know I can. I want to. But maybe next time we should… Find something easier. Ease back into things. I do know my limits."

"Well, maybe we'll wait a little before our next case, okay?"

"Okay."

A couple of years before, Sam wouldn't have thought his brother could be this reasonable where his own good was concerned. But now he understood that at some point Dean had been so bad that he'd scared himself as much as he'd scared Sam. So if Dean said he could handle hunting, then it meant he could – and if hunting made his brother happy then Sam wouldn't fight it. They had lost so much and had so little.

Sam blinked, feeling his eyelids droop. Somehow Dean had to have felt it because he said, "You should sleep some more. I don't want you to have another nervous breakdown."

"Fuck you," Sam mumbled, but laid down again on the bed. He was exhausted. He closed his eyes and thought he heard Dean say something, but he didn't care because he was already asleep.

ooo

It was a nice, sunny day, with a sky so blue and vibrant it hurt Dean's eyes – but he couldn't keep himself from looking at it. They were sitting at their usual table at the Cheerful Tortoise, waiting for their orders. _They _didn't mean as usual he and Sam – no, today all the people living at the Simon Benson House were gathered and Dean felt a little crowded, like there was barely enough air for him to breathe at ease. They were trying to give him his space, though, so that he had almost one side of the table for himself, while Anna and Kelly sat so close that they were almost in each other's laps – not that they seemed to mind.

"Have you heard from Amy?" Sam was asking Paul.

"Yeah. She was arrested but they let her go, along with Colleen. But Amy's aunt, Colleen's father and Mrs. Griffith are still in prison. The Torrances ran away, and the police still haven't found Hardison."

"Good," Anna said. When everyone looked at her, she blushed and said, "He saved me, twice. He'd just lost his daughter and he still thought about protecting me, though he barely knew me."

Kelly looked at her for a moment, and took her hand on the table, squeezed it without a word.

"Amy and you…" Sam said to Paul. "Are you still together?"

"Of course," Paul said. He folded his arms on his chest and looked defiantly at Sam. "I don't see why we wouldn't be. She had nothing to do with this. The night of the fire, when she woke up it was too late. She didn't know what they were planning to do and she couldn't do anything to stop them."

"What I don't understand," Dean said, "is why she wanted us to come. Obviously, she was afraid we would find out what happened with the museum's fire."

"She was afraid of the shadows," Paul said, scratching his nose. "I think she saw them too, though she never told me. She probably hoped… this had nothing to do with the fire, and that she could keep you from finding out too much. She doesn't condone what they did," he insisted. "But they're her people. Her family."

"Yeah." Dean saw Sam glance at him.

"I wonder who killed Patterson," Dean said to change the subject, "Did he disagree with the others and they… silenced him?"

"I think it was Hardison," Sam said. "The first time we saw him was when we burned Patterson's body. What was he doing outside in the middle of the night? I think he killed him because Patterson had found him. Maybe they had a fight."

Dean nodded, remembering that he had similar thoughts that night. He wondered if Hardison was watching them as they burn the body.

"Yeah, probably," he said. "But why didn't he burn the body himself? He was a hunter."

"Maybe he wanted someone to find the body." Sam shrugged. "Maybe he didn't want him to just… disappear."

"Maybe. I guess we'll never know."

It was always so much more complicated where people were concerned. Give him a good old poltergeist any time of the day. At least he wouldn't have to decide whether he had sympathy for the dude who had unleashed a bunch of creepy shadows on a town.

The conversation strayed to other subjects and Dean stopped participating, comfortably withdrawing into himself, looking at the people around the table but not really listening. It felt weird, sitting at a table with a group of people. Friends, or something close to that. Dean never had a lot of friends except for Sammy, and he'd lost most of them. He missed Bobby, and often found himself wanting to call him for one reason or another before he remembered that he couldn't. Ellen and Jo lived far away and they didn't see them very often. Dean missed Castiel too, sometimes resented the angel for his "walking the earth" thing, for making him look forward to stupid postcards – but he didn't believe in putting a leash on his friends.

And sometimes he missed Haborym, and this was certainly the most fucked up thing of all. He'd never felt alone when Haborym and him had shared a body, though Haborym's idea of a good time consisted mostly of mental torture, sharing with Dean his most horrible memories of Hell and having fun trying to uncover _Dean_'s worst memories of Hell. Home, sweet home, he would say. Fucker – and yet, sometimes the demon's absence ached like there was a hole in his soul.

Paul was talking animatedly about syntactic differences between French and English, gesturing with enthusiasm. Dean was starting to think that the guy was full of shit when he complained about teaching. Sam was listening attentively, like any of this was even remotely interesting, the geek. Kelly was still holding Anna's hand and absently rubbing her thumb on the back of her girlfriend's hand. Probably not realizing she was doing it. Dean turned his gaze back on Sam. There were new lines at the corner of his brother's mouth, lines of pain and sorrow but right now he was smiling, and his dimples were showing. Dean thought about how young his brother still was. He thought about the miracle it was for them to both be here, sitting with people who didn't want to kill them and maybe even kind of liked them. There wasn't any word in Dean's vocabulary to label what he was feeling now. Maybe it was wonderment. Maybe it was gratitude.

"Dean, you're okay, sweetie?"

It was Elena, coming to check on them as she often did, like they would fall apart if she left them on their own for too long. Her headscarf was a bright green today, and she was frowning anxiously. Great, now everyone was watching him. Sam looked worried. Couldn't Dean do a bit of musing on his life without everyone overreacting?

"I'm okay," he said. "I was just thinking."

"Don't strain something," Sam said and Dean gave him the finger, chuckling at the way Sam rolled his eyes in return.

Maybe the word he was looking for was happiness, but that would just be crazy.


End file.
